"Det är ju viktigt att vägleda rätt"

: En kvalitativ studie om hälsa och delaktighet inom Arbetsförmedlingens etableringsarbete

Abstract

The background for this study is that there is a connection between health and how much a person participates in society. Previous studies show a correlation between the access to integration efforts and the promotion of one’s health. The purpose of this study is to analyze how the regulations concerning establishment for immigrants on the Swedish labor market, put up by the Swedish government, is implemented and functioning out of a health perspective, specifically in the municipality of Kristianstad. A qualitative method was chosen and data was collected through semi-structured interviews conducted on workers from The Swedish Public Employment Service in Kristianstad, the official contractors for the national establishment reform. To analyze the material, a content analysis was used. The results showed that knowledge of the Swedish language is one of the main factors to become integrated in society, alongside possibilities to gain work experience through internship provided by the The Swedish Public Employment Service. Another finding was the occurrence of cultural factors on the labor market, affecting the immigrants’ way to integration, even more so if their Swedish language skills were limited. A problem that emerged from our study showed that the participants experienced a homogenization within the establishment reform which restricted their possibilities to individualize the actions for each participant.