The idea that rural communities are being abandoned by the public sector has become a familiar story in many Western countries. Politicians, journalists, and researchers have pointed to shrinking public services as a key driver of rural discontent, fueling support for populist parties. In Sweden, this debate is very much alive. A new study by David Sandberg, Andreas Bergh, and Emanuel Wittberg examines how public sector employment has changed across different parts of Sweden over the last three decades — and finds a more nuanced picture than the common narrative suggests.
The study draws on employment records covering all Swedish municipalities from 1993 to 2023, combined with annual surveys on trust and satisfaction with public services. While total public employment has declined across all types of municipalities, the decline has not been larger in rural areas. In fact, the number of nurses per capita has grown more in rural municipalities than in urban ones, and teacher-to-child ratios have increased as well. Some state functions, such as police and courts, have become more centralized and have retreated more from rural municipalities.
The survey data add another layer to the picture. Satisfaction with public services has not fallen in rural areas over the studied period. If anything, it has converged toward urban levels, while satisfaction in metropolitan areas has trended downward. Rural residents are no less satisfied with their schools or healthcare than city dwellers.
The findings suggest that the story of rural public sector decline is more complicated than it first appears. Rural Sweden has certainly changed, and some state functions have become more centralized. But the welfare state itself has remained comparatively strong outside urban areas, even when accounting for demographic changes. The study highlights that perceptions of marginalization do not always align with the actual development of public services, an important reminder when trying to understand political and social change in places that feel left behind.
The study is published in: Population, Space and Place, Volume32, Issue3 April 2026
About the author
David Sandberg is a PhD Candidate in Economics at Lund University School of Economics and Management. Davids’s primary research interests are in in Labor, Public, and Urban Economics.
This research was undertaken as part of the author’s PhD studies at the Department of Economics at Lund University School of Economics and Management. Read more about the dissertation:
When Places Change: Essays on Local Labor Markets and Individual Responses.
