Letter: Swedish PM’s Chinatown quip at odds with the data

Letter to the FT (September 7, 2022)

If Sweden’s Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson were familiar with crime statistics by immigrant groups, she would not take the view that her country would be better off without its Chinatowns (“Sweden playground shooting shapes voter concerns”, Report, September 3).

The Danes have collected (and published) data on criminality by immigrant groups. A 2016 study by the Danish national statistical office shows that first generation Chinese immigrants have criminality rates more than a quarter below the Danish average. Based on patterns for other East Asian immigrant groups and in other geographies, criminality rates will fall to less than half the level for the Danish population as a whole, for second generation Chinese immigrants. This phenomenon holds in Sweden as well. Not all immigration is equal.

Kai L Chan
Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

Article as it appeared online.

© THE FINANCIAL TIMES LTD 2022. FT and ‘Financial Times’ are trademarks of The Financial Times Ltd.