Abstract
Housing is a critical aspect of social policy for refugees, as it serves as the foundation for their integration into a new society. While recognized as important, providing housing for refugees can be quite challenging for countries. This was particularly apparent during the 2015 European migrant crisis, when more than a million refugees, mainly from Syria, Iraq, Libya, and Afghanistan, flooded into Europe. Recipient countries did and continue to adopt varying policies when it comes to providing housing for refugees. This paper analyzes Denmark and Sweden’s response to the migration crisis and shows that the two countries had starkly different approaches, with Sweden adopting more generous policies. This policy divergence is particularly interesting, as both countries are characterized as social democratic regimes—regimes that prioritize active state involvement and universalism. The paper investigates this policy divergence, walking through a range of potential explanations: institutions, interest groups, framing, descriptive representation, and culture. It ultimately concludes that while these factors all contribute to the observed policy divergence, none of them could be seen as the core reason as to why the countries differ in their refugee housing policy. Therefore, deciphering the divergence requires an analysis of historical precedents regarding refugee integration established within each country prior to the 2015 migration crisis.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Kearney, Julia
(2025)
"Sweden and Denmark’s Approach to Public Housing for Refugees in Response to the 2015 European Refugee Crisis,"
Claremont-UC Undergraduate Research Conference on the European Union:
Vol. 2025, Article 10.
Available at:
https://scholarship.claremont.edu/urceu/vol2025/iss1/10