Youth segregation in Sweden may be reinforced not only by the isolation of disadvantaged neighbourhoods, but also by the limited social environments experienced by teenagers in wealthier areas. A study from Örebro University found that adolescents from lower-income districts often crossed socioeconomic boundaries more frequently than their peers from more affluent parts of the city.
The research followed 99 students aged 15 to 16 attending three lower-secondary schools in different parts of Örebro. Researcher Joakim Billevik Gerdås examined where they travelled, which places they visited and how their movements related to their friendships.
The findings complicate a common understanding of urban segregation, which often focuses primarily on the exclusion and restricted opportunities affecting poorer neighbourhoods.
Youth segregation in Sweden extends beyond residential areas
Around 75 percent of the participants spent most of their time in areas that were socioeconomically similar to their own neighbourhoods, according to SVT’s report on the research.
Only about 8 percent both moved across socioeconomic boundaries and had friends living in areas with different economic and social conditions.
The results suggest that geographical proximity does not necessarily create meaningful contact. Although neighbourhoods with different socioeconomic profiles may be located close to one another, teenagers living in them rarely meet in their everyday lives.
“The study shows that geographical proximity between areas does not automatically lead to social encounters or relationships between people with different socioeconomic conditions,” Billevik Gerdås said in a statement published by Örebro University.
Teenagers in poorer districts crossed more social boundaries
The study found that young people from socioeconomically disadvantaged areas were often exposed to a broader range of social environments than those living in wealthier districts.
Teenagers from lower-income neighbourhoods tended to travel across socioeconomic boundaries more frequently, even though they generally moved within smaller geographical areas, travelled shorter distances and had slightly fewer friends elsewhere in the city.
“What is interesting is that young people from resource-poor areas often have greater socioeconomic exposure in everyday life than young people from socioeconomically strong areas,” Billevik Gerdås said.
Teenagers from affluent neighbourhoods were therefore, in some respects, at least as socially isolated as those living in disadvantaged areas. Their movements and relationships were more likely to remain within environments resembling their own.
This does not mean that the consequences of segregation are equal across income groups. Residential segregation still produces unequal access to services, opportunities and resources. The findings instead show that privilege does not necessarily result in greater contact with the wider city.
Mobility and friendships reveal different forms of segregation
The research forms part of Billevik Gerdås’s doctoral dissertation, Ungas rörelser i den segregerade staden: Om vardagsmobilitet, gränser och gränsövergångar, published in 2026.
The dissertation examined how segregation is shaped through everyday mobility, rather than looking only at where people officially live. It also considered how movement patterns interact with friendships, perceptions of safety, gender and first language.
According to the English abstract published by Skolporten, the project combined mental maps completed by 99 participants, interactive maps from 96 students and interviews with ten teenagers.
This distinction matters because a young person may travel through several districts without developing relationships there. Conversely, friendships can cross social boundaries even when everyday physical movement remains limited. Only a small proportion of the participants crossed those boundaries in both mobility and personal relationships.
A local study rather than a national picture
The findings come with important limitations. The research involved a small and geographically concentrated sample drawn from three schools in Örebro. It cannot automatically be treated as representative of all Swedish teenagers or of every segregated European city.
The study nevertheless offers a different way to interpret social separation. Segregation is not simply a condition in which residents of poorer districts remain excluded from wealthier parts of a city. It can also emerge when people in privileged areas rarely leave their own social surroundings or form relationships beyond them.
Billevik Gerdås argues that policies intended to reduce segregation should therefore consider the everyday places where relationships can develop.
Creating shared spaces is not sufficient when different groups use them at different times or without interacting. More durable integration may depend on schools, public services, leisure activities and urban spaces that encourage repeated contact across socioeconomic boundaries.
The Örebro findings suggest that understanding segregation requires looking at the whole city. Social bubbles can limit the experiences of teenagers on both sides of an economic divide, even though the material consequences remain substantially different.
