Do 79% of Swedish asylum seekers go on holiday to the country they fled from?
More or Less: Behind the Stats
BBC
4.6 • 3.5K Ratings
🗓️ 11 January 2025
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The claim that 79% of asylum seekers in Sweden go on holiday in their home country has been repeated regularly on social media. It’s used to argue that recent refugees are being disingenuous about the danger they face in the country they have fled from. But when you look at the survey the claim is based on, you see the stat in a very different way. We speak to Hjalmar Strid, who ran the survey for polling company Novus, and Tino Sanandaji from Bulletin, the online news site which published it.
Presenter: Charlotte McDonald Producer: Tom Colls Production co-ordinator: Katie Morrison Sound Mix: Neil Churchill Editor: Richard Vadon
Transcript
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| 0:05.2 | My name's Andy Martin and I'm the editor of a team of podcast producers at the BBC in Northern Ireland. |
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| 0:37.1 | from all around the UK. |
| 0:38.9 | Thanks for downloading the more or less podcast. With a programme that has a good |
| 0:43.3 | nosy round in some of the numbers in the news and I'm Charlotte MacDonald. |
| 0:49.3 | The stat we're looking into this week was sent in by loyal listener David, who saw a suspicious |
| 0:54.8 | percentage on social media. I recently saw a post on X, claiming 79% of refugees in Sweden |
| 1:02.8 | have vacationed in the country they fled from. I don't believe this to be true, but can you |
| 1:08.7 | look into the numbers? This figure has been bouncing around the internet for a couple of years, |
| 1:13.8 | and it's often used to imply that current asylum seekers |
| 1:17.1 | are not really fleeing from a genuine risk in the country they fled from. |
| 1:21.5 | If they were, you might think they'd be unlikely to return to that country for a holiday. |
| 1:26.6 | One of those bouncing the number around is Elon Musk, |
| 1:29.9 | who recently posted on X... |
| 1:31.8 | Almost 80% of asylum seekers went on vacation to their home countries. |
| 1:37.4 | So, is David Wright to doubt this stat? |
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