Swedish Iranians or Swedish Persians consist of people of Iranian nationality who have settled in Sweden, as well as Swedish residents and citizens of Iranian heritage. As of 2019, there were 80,136 residents of Sweden born in Iran, as well as 40,883 born in Sweden with at least one Iranian-born parent.
Terminology
Swedish-Iranian is used interchangeably with Swedish-Persian, partly due to the fact that, in the Western world, Iran was known as "Persia". On the Nowruz of 1935, Reza Shah Pahlavi asked foreign delegates to use the term Iran, the endonym of the country used since the Sasanian Empire, in formal correspondence. Since then the use of the word "Iran" has become more common in the Western countries. This also changed the usage of the terms for Iranian nationality, and the common adjective for citizens of Iran changed from "Persian" to "Iranian". In 1959, the government of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, Reza Shah Pahlavi's son, announced that both "Persia" and "Iran" could officially be used interchangeably. However the issue is [|still debated today]. There is a tendency among Swedish Iranians to categorize themselves as "Persian" rather than "Iranian", mainly to dissociate themselves from the Islamic regime of Iran which has been in charge since the 1979 Revolution, and also to distinguish themselves as being of Persian ethnicity, which comprise about 65% of Iran's population. While the majority of Iranians come from Persian backgrounds, there is a significant number of non-Persian Iranians such as Azeris and Kurds within the Iranian community of Sweden, leading some scholars to believe that the label "Iranian" is more inclusive, since the label "Persian" excludes non-Persian minorities. The Collins English Dictionary uses a variety of similar and overlapping definitions for the terms "Persian" and "Iranian".
Demographics
There are approximately 63,828 people born in Iran living in Sweden today, as well as 28,600 people born in Sweden with at least one parent born in Iran. They are one of Sweden's largest immigrant groups, accounting for about 1.7% of the population. The very first wave of Iranian refugees consisted of 5,000 Iranian refugees who fled to Sweden in 1979-1980 most of them were middle-aged, middle-class Pahlavi supporters who were opposing the revolution. When the Iran-Iraq War broke out in 1980, almost 20,000 Iranian citizens found asylum in Sweden. Second generation Iranian Swedes are well-represented in higher education and in some well paying professions like dentistry and engineering. About 60% percent of them go on to higher education – more than the Swedish average Iranian culture with its emphasis on education may be part of the reason for this. Becoming an engineer or a doctor is a mantra in many families. Abundantly represented minorities amongst the Swedish Iranians, like in other Iranian diaspora nations are Azerbaijanis, Kurds, Armenians and Assyrians.
