Intersection
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Intersection – a way to development What happens when culture meets social innovation? Integrated Action Plan for the URBACT Boosting Social Innovation Project Edited by Jörgen Dehlin and Leif Wennerberg February 2018 wennerberg kreativ4you 1 2 Facts and Figures about Skåne 1 • Skåne is Sweden's southernmost region and has 33 local, and self governing, municipalities with a total population of 1 324 565 (2016). • Main cities and population (2016): - Malmö: 328 494 - Helsingborg: 140 547 - Lund: 118 542 - Kristianstad: 83 191 • Demographic structure, trends and population flows: In 2016, Skåne’s population growth was at record levels. The total population increased by 20,938 people, which was an increase of 6,200 compared to 2015, which also had historically high population growth. At the turn of the year 2016/2017, Skåne had 1,324,565 inhabitants. The largest part of Skåne's population growth is due to foreign net migration. What we are seeing now is that the large group of asylum seekers who arrived in 2015, are being granted residence permits in Sweden. Skåne also has a natural population growth and positive net migration in relation to other counties in Sweden. In 2016, all Skåne's municipalities saw an increase in their populations. The biggest municipalities of Malmö, Helsingborg and Lund saw the largest increases. The western part of Skåne is increasing faster than the eastern part. Population density Skåne has a relatively high population density with 121 people per km2. This is the second highest in Sweden after Stockholm, with 348 people per km2. Western Sweden has a population density of 70 people per km2-. The average population density in Sweden is 25 people per km2. T The most densely populated part of Skåne is found along the west coast, were the major cities of Malmö, Lund and Helsingborg are located. The most sparsely populated areas are in the north and east of Skåne, e.g. Osby in the north-eastern part of Skåne, with less than 23 people per km2. • Population projection 2025: By 2025, Skåne is expected to have almost 1.5 million inhabitants. Over the next ten years, the age structure of Skåne will change quite significantly. Despite this, the average age is only expected to increase by less than half a year. It is primarily the number of children, young people and people aged 80 and older that are expected to increase the most until 2025. 1 Source: Report to OECD Territorial Review Megaregion Western Scandinavia; ”Skåne – facts and key trends; Region Skåne och Helsingborgs stad, 2017. 3 The number of people aged between 20-64 years of age is expected to increase by about 73,000 by 2025, largely due to immigration to the county, but this group is still not increasing as rapidly as the population overall. The number of elderly people is expected to increase during the forecast period, where a significant factor is that those 80 years and older are expected to increase by over 30 percent over the forecast period. Although the number of older people is increasing, the mortality rate at different ages has declined and more people are living longer. The changing age structure of the population in Skåne will affect different sectors of the labor market, including childcare, schools and elderly care. The age structure will probably also affect the demand for different types of housing. It is primarily south-west and north-west Skåne that are expected to see the strongest population growth in Skåne up until 2025, with high birth rates and migration into the area, especially from abroad. However, the number of people leaving north-west Skåne is expected to increase slightly. Population growth in both south-east and north-east Skåne will not be as strong, but the population will increase slightly, mainly due to foreign net migration. • Greater Copenhagen: Greater Copenhagen is a region that encompasses the area of eastern Denmark and Skåne in Sweden. The 79 municipalities in Greater Copenhagen, 46 Danish and 33 Swedish, are home to 4 million inhabitants and Scandinavia’s largest recruitment base of high- skilled employees. The region offers world class research facilities and a creative business environment with access to the markets of two countries. The Greater Copenhagen & Skåne Committee is a political platform that was founded in January 2016. • Life satisfaction, trust and health: The general quality of life in Skåne is high. More than nine out of ten inhabitants of Skåne are very or fairly satisfied with their lives. The level of interpersonal trust is low among younger inhabitants and highest among the middle aged. Good health is important for quality of life and interpersonal trust. The state of health in Skåne is in line with the national average and more than seven out of ten inhabitants are in good self- reported health. The younger generations are in poorer mental health, and ill-health among the young is increasing over time. • Labor market: The financial crisis of the early 1990s severely impacted Skåne’s labour market. Between 1990 and 1993, employment fell in Skåne and approximately 70,000 jobs were lost. The employed proportion of the population aged 20-64 fell from 82 percent to 71 percent. The recovery gained momentum in 1997/98, when both the private and the public sector began to grow simultaneously. It was not until 2005 that employment figures, in absolute numbers, reached the same level as in 1990. In connection with the financial crisis, extensive restructuring and radical changes occurred. 4 The financial crisis mainly affected the manufacturing industry. Initially, low-productive industrial companies closed down while other companies were forced to increase their productivity in order to survive. Rising unemployment entailed increased expenditure within the public transfer systems, which triggered cuts in the public sector, which did not start to grow again until the late 1990s. One way to address extensive youth unemployment was to greatly expand higher education, which included the opening of a college in Malmö in 1998. The result was a sharp rise in the level of education, particularly among young people. The trend since the late 1990s has been characterized by growth in business services in the broad sense (ICT, R&D, but also basic administration and cleaning services, etc.), the retail sector, the hotel and restaurant sector, the construction sector, as well as in education and health and social care. Whereas the number of people employed in the agricultural sector, forestry and the manufacturing industry has dramatically declined. Employment in Skåne as a whole has grown rapidly in the 2000s. Between 2000 and 2015, employment rose in Skåne and approximately 79,000 jobs were created. Structural change has led to a redistribution of employment in Skåne. The financial crises of the early 90s and 2008/09 impacted the manufacturing sector the hardest, which meant that the north-east and certain parts of northwest Skåne, which was Skåne’s industrial heartland, were hardest hit. Growth occurred primarily in service industries, which have other localisation requirements than the manufacturing industries that disappeared in connection with the financial crises. The result was a relocation of employment that favored urban centers with access to highly skilled labor. This restructuring led to relatively rapid growth in employment in south-west Skåne. But even if the working age population is growing rapidly in south-west Skåne, the employment rate remains at a relatively low level. Structural change and the financial crisis have also resulted in changes to the level of unemployment and its geographical distribution. The number of unemployed in Skåne fell sharply until the financial crisis in 2008/09, when unemployment rose from four to seven percent of the population between the ages of 16-64. The proportion of the population who were unemployed continued to rise until 2013, when nearly eight percent were unemployed or in a programme with activity support. Unemployment in Skåne has declined somewhat since then, but remains at a relatively high level. Unemployment has also been redistributed within Skåne. Before the financial crisis, unemployment was lowest in north-east and south-east Skåne, but after the financial crisis, unemployment rose sharply in the north-east sub region, where it is currently the highest. In large part, this is since the financial crisis mainly affected the manufacturing industry, which was more prevalent in northern Skåne. 5 Unemployment in south-west Skåne has approached the average for Skåne. The unemployed in Skåne, as well as in the country as a whole, currently consist mainly of people who lack an upper secondary education, are long-term unemployed or were born abroad. In September 2017 the unemployment level in Skåne was 9,9 % • Education: Every child has equal access to free education in Sweden. School is compulsory up to ninth grade (Elementary School). Upper secondary school is optional, and anyone that has completed upper secondary school may apply for post-secondary education. Skåne has one of the highest education levels in Sweden. However, there are large differences between municipalities in Skåne. For example, less than five percent of all people from 35-44 years old in Lomma, Vellinge and Lund had only attained secondary education in 2015. On the other end of the scale, in Perstorp, Bjuv and Landskrona, they accounted for at least 15 percent of the age group. This is significant, since there are very few jobs available in the Swedish labor market for low skilled workers. In the early 1990s, Sweden was affected by a deep economic crisis with rapidly declining employment and widespread unemployment. One way to tackle extensive unemployment was to significantly expand higher education. In 2015, around 56 percent of the female population and 40 percent of the male population from 24-34 years of age had a tertiary education.