Divorce reshapes family life, yet little is known about one of its most consequential features: the allocation of child custody. We study the impact of joint versus sole custody on both parents and children using rich administrative data from Sweden linked to over 25 years of newly-collected court custody rulings. To address selection concerns, we exploit random assignment of custody disputes to judges who differ sharply in their propensity to grant joint custody. For fathers, joint custody substantially raises earnings and improves mental health, consistent with sustained paternal involvement enhancing labor market attachment and psychological well-being. In contrast, there are no measurable labor market or mental health effects for mothers. Turning to children, joint custody increases standardized test scores and school quality without affecting mental health outcomes. Joint custody increases fathers’ chances of remarriage, keeps separated parents in closer geographic proximity, and has no effect on intimate partner violence allegations against either partner. These findings inform longstanding debates over the role of child custody in shaping post-divorce family life.

We estimate the causal effects of parental incarceration on children’s short- and long-run outcomes using administrative data from Sweden. Our empirical strategy exploits exogenous variation in parental incarceration from the random assignment of criminal defendants to judges with different incarceration tendencies. We find that incarceration of a parent in childhood leads to a significant increase in teen criminal convictions, a decrease in schooling outcomes, and worse labour market outcomes in adulthood. The effects are concentrated among children from disadvantaged families, in particular families where the remaining non-convicted parent is disadvantaged. These results suggest that the incarceration of parents with young children may significantly increase the intergenerational persistence of poverty and criminal behaviour in affluent countries with extensive social safety nets and progressive criminal justice systems.

We explore the role of identity along multiple dimensions in high-stakes decision-making. Our data contain information about demographic and socioeconomic indicators for defendants and randomly assigned jurors in a Swedish court. Our results show that defendants are 4 to 6 percent less likely to get a prison sentence if judged by one more juror belonging to the same identity-forming group. Moreover, they are given 10 percent shorter prison sentences. Socioeconomic background and demographic attributes are equally important for identity effects, and these effects stem from trials of longer duration and where the defendant is present in the courtroom.

Electronic monitoring (EM) has emerged as a popular tool for curbing the growth of large prison populations. Evidence on the causal effects of EM on criminal recidivism is, however, limited and it is unclear how this alternative to incarceration affects the labor supply of offenders and the outcomes of their family members. We study the countrywide expansion of EM in Sweden in 1997 wherein offenders sentenced to up to three months in prison were granted the option to substitute incarceration with EM. Our difference-in-differences estimates, which compare the change in the prison inflow rate of treated offenders to that of non-treated offenders with slightly longer sentences, show that the reform significantly decreased the number of incarcerations. Our main finding is that EM not only lowers criminal recidivism but also increases labor supply. Additionally, EM improves the educational attainment and early-life earnings of the children whose parents were exposed to the reform. The primary mechanisms through which EM operates appear to involve the preservation of offenders’ ties to the labor market, by reducing the barriers to both finding a job and changing employers. Our calculations suggest that the social benefits stemming from EM are about seven times larger than the fiscal savings associated with reduced prison expenditures, implying that the welfare gains from EM could be much greater than previously acknowledged.

We explore the role of identity along multiple dimensions in high-stakes decisionmaking.Our data contain information about demographic and socioeconomic indicatorsfor randomly assigned jurors and defendants in a Swedish court. Our results showthat defendants are 15 percent less likely to get a prison sentence if they and the jurorsbelong to the same identity-forming groups. Socioeconomic background and demographicattributes are at least as important, and combining several identities producesstronger e ects.

Electronic monitoring (EM) is a popular instrument to reduce large prison populations.Evidence on the effects of EM on criminal recidivism is, however, limited and it is unclearhow this alternative to incarceration affects the labor market outcomes of offenders. Moreover,little is known about potential spillover effects on family members. We study theintroduction of EM in Sweden in 1997 wherein offenders sentenced to up to three monthsin prison were given the possibility to avoid entering prison by substituting to EM. Ourdifference-in-differences estimates comparing the change in the prison inflow rate of eligibleoffenders to that of non-eligible offenders with slightly longer sentences show that the reformdramatically decreased incarcerations. Our main finding is that EM lowers criminalrecidivism and improves offenders’ labor market outcomes. There is also some evidence ofimprovements in the short and intermediate run outcomes of the children of the offenders.The main channels through which EM operates seem to be by allowing offenders to maintainregular work and potentially also by reducing employer discrimination. Our calculationssuggest that the social benefits of EM are at least six to nine times larger than the fiscalsavings from reduced prison expenditure. This makes the welfare improvements from EMpotentially much greater than what has been previously recognized.

This paper uses administrative data to in detail document how the share of youths not in employment, education or training has evolved over time in the Scandinavian countries. We study both first- and second-generation immigrant youths as well as natives to explore whether the pattern differ depending on the region of origin. We show that the NEET rates are higher among youths with an immigrant background compared to youths with a native background in all countries. Even when controlling for youth background characteristics, first- and second-generation immigrant youths have significantly higher probability of being in NEET compared to native youths.

This chapter asks whether the labour market situation of minority ethnic youth improved or deteriorated during the 2000s, and whether there is evidence that major policy reforms since 2000 made a difference. As a first step toward such knowledge, this chapter analyses how the employment opportunities for minority ethnic youth have developed and how these developments differ between diverse categories of minority ethnic youth in four Nordic countries. The NEET (not in employment, education or training) rates are the highest for the foreign born and lowest for the native born with native-born parents in all countries. The differences are increasing with age, indicating that minority ethnic youth face more obstacles to being included in the labour market than into the school system. Except for Sweden, young women born in a non-Western country are more at risk of being NEET than their male peers.

Sverige har de senaste åren tagit emot ett rekordstort antal flyktingbarn, många i åldrarna 13 till 17 år. Eftersom en slutförd gymnasieutbildning är en nyckel till arbete för ungdomar i Sverige är det viktigt att även nyanlända ungdomar klarar skolan bra.

I den här rapporten undersöker Hans Grönqvist och Susan Niknami skillnaderna i studieresultat, det så kallade studiegapet, mellan inrikes och utrikes födda elever. Författarna finner att gapet har ökat stadigt sedan slutet av 1980-talet, och mest markant runt 2008. Genom att studera samma elever både i årskurs 6 och 9 visar författarna att kunskapsskillnaderna åtminstone minskar med tiden i skolan. Mest avgörande för studiegapets storlek är föräldrarnas socioekonomiska situation. Om inrikes och utrikes födda elever hade haft föräldrar med liknande socioekonomisk bakgrund och bott i samma bostadsområde hade nästan hela skillnaden försvunnit. För att minska gapet mellan inrikes och utrikes födda barn behövs därför insatser som riktar sig både till de utrikes födda eleverna och till deras föräldrar.