Sweden's minority government, backed by its allies the Sweden Democrats, has announced plans to hold the first national census in more than 30 years.
The last official census was held back in 1990, with a questionnaire sent out to every address in the country. Since then, it has instead relied a registration-based system to monitor the population.
Under the new plan, however, the Swedish Tax Agency will be given an additional SEK 500 million ($49 million). The money will potentially be used on checking up on apartments in what is formally classified as "high risk areas," often with
"Quite a lot of doors are going to end up getting knocked on, but we can’t do that everywhere. It’s not an effective use of taxpayer’s money," Finance Minister Elisabeth Svantesson said in a statement.
The national-conservative Sweden Democrats have long insisted that the current registration-based arrangement leads to people living in Sweden without formal residency not being counted. The party secured a commitment to hold a census as part of the underlying agreement reached in October 2022. Then, it reached the necessary support to the minority government without entering it in return for having some of its demands met – including those regarding immigration policy.
"As a result of decades of irresponsible migration policies, we have lost control of how many people and which people are living in our country," Sweden Democrat leader Jimmie Akesson said. He added that a tradition which has "lasted for hundreds of years in Sweden, of maintaining an orderly population register," was under threat.
According to Akesson, this creates a risk that the welfare system gets undermined by widespread fraud, with illegal immigrants being exploited by both employers and criminals, in what he described as "gigantic problem" for society.
In 2015 alone, 163,000 asylum seekers, mostly Syrians, Afghans and Iraqis, entered the country. As of now, more than a third of the Swedish population are estimated to have a foreign background. Statistics Sweden projects the country's population to reach 12.6 million in 2070.