Almost 20 years ago, I wrote a report for DN about the increased gap between Stockholm’s 117 districts measured in sick days, work, salary, education, housing, foreign background, grants and school. A clear example was Södra Ängby and Blackeberg, separated by a narrow street which was then Stockholm’s sharpest boundary between two districts in terms of average annual income.
The working 16-64-year-old in Blackeberg then earned an average of SEK 195,000 a year and that in Södra Ängby SEK 475,000. On 1 January this year, the average annual salary had risen to SEK 335,000 in Blackeberg and significantly more, to SEK 741,000, in Södra Ängby. The difference has increased since 2002 from SEK 280,000 to SEK 406,000.
The City of Stockholm’s statistics site shows the same development in the entire municipality. Employees in the six most well-paid districts have increased their annual income by an average of SEK 328,000 in 20 years, the six least paid by SEK 28,000–50,000 more per month.
Free wage setting is a cornerstone of the Swedish labor market and the workers in Södra Ängby are certainly worth every penny. Still, something is rubbing.
If you search the internet for “stockholm.se” and “area facts”, you get a gloomy picture of the development in Stockholm’s six most immigrant-dense districts. In Rinkeby, where 92 percent have a foreign background, only half have a job where they earn an average of SEK 17,000 a month. In Tensta the salary is SEK 18,000, in Husby SEK 19,500 and in Skärholmen SEK 20,000 – before tax.
The days with sickness compensation are more than twice as many as the average for Stockholm. In the city’s highest paid district Höglandet, not so far from Rinkeby, the average annual income is SEK 960,000, 82 percent have a job and they were on average not on sick leave even for a whole day last year.
They live to say the least spacious. Well done! You wish everyone had it that way.
Do the widening gaps only point to a kind of unaffected socio-economic law of nature? Or on a dangerous virus in the city’s bloodstream? The answer is probably determined by where you live.