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There were considerable differences in education levels between the groups. The proportion of
women with a university education was the highest among immigrants from North America, Japan,
Oceania and the former Soviet Union (68% and 64% in 2009, respectively) whereas the majority of
Swedish-born women in the sample had only completed secondary school education (62% in 1995
and 55% in 2009). In the group consolidated as “refugees”, over 40% had only completed primary
education or lower (Figure 2).
Family
It was assumed that women of different cultural backgrounds would diverge in labour supply while
having small children. A dummy variable was constructed to show the presence of children 1-5 years
old (children of pre-school age), and this was included in the estimations of the interactions with
types of immigrants. It was also expected that the number of children per women would vary
significantly between the groups. Therefore, estimates were controlled by the number of children
aged 0–3 years, 4–6 years, 7–10 years, 11–15 years, and 16–17 years. In 40%–50% of the
observations, women originating from the “refugee” groups had pre-school age children. In other
groups, 20%–30% of the observations had children of these ages. The highest numbers of schoolage children were in groups of Swedish-born women and immigrants originating from Cent