Hello, I'm Tim Halford. Thank you for downloading the shorter edition of More or Less,

first broadcast on the BBC World Service. This episode covers statistics on refugees in Sweden,

and you will already have heard it if you're a loyal podcast subscriber,

or if you've listened to the Radio 4 version of the programme.

Hello and welcome to More or Less on the BBC World Service. We're your weekly guide to the

numbers in the news and in life, and I'm Tim Halford. Recently an article in the UK's Times

Newspaper caught our attention. The piece said that because of all the immigrants arriving in Sweden,

there's now a bigger gender imbalance among 16 and 17-year-olds than there is in China.

That's quite something. China's one-child policy led to a preference for

sons and selective abortion of female fetuses has contributed to a sex ratio of 117 boys

for every 100 girls. In Sweden, the number among 16 and 17-year-olds is now said to be

123 boys for every 100 girls. The research that the article cited was from Valerie Hudson of

Texas A&M University in the United States, and Hans Rosling, Swedish statistical hero and friend

of More or Less, is worried about this potential gender imbalance. But are the numbers true?

For that, there was only one place we could turn, and that's to our Sweden correspondent.

I don't mean it. I mean, I can believe we have an obesity expert. I know we have a cod correspondent.

A Swedish correspondent, really? Of course not. I also cover Latvia.

Now who's that? Keith Moore, dialing him from the frozen North. Heard him or do Tim?

Bratak Keith. So, Sweden's experienced a lot of immigration in the last year, hasn't it?

Yes, it really has. The place I'm currently sitting in is in the north of Sweden, a place

where it gets to minus 30 degrees Celsius in the winter and dark at 2.30 in the afternoon.

It's a community of 9,000 that's had 1,000 asylum seekers in the last year, and

...