Have Swedes' values become more or less liberal?

Depends on the dimension. Acceptance of LGBTQ, gender equality and divorce has risen markedly (WVS). Institutional trust has been stable. Immigration attitudes follow a U-curve. No single ‘liberalisation trend’ explains all movements.

Why do more say religion is important in 2020 than in 1990?

Two mechanisms are discussed: (1) demographic change — the 2020 respondents have a different composition than 1990, (2) individually secular Swedes reporting religion as important in a broader sense. Cross-sectional data cannot distinguish these without panel studies.

Are attitudes to immigration harder now than before?

According to SOM: 61 % wanted to receive fewer refugees in 1990, 40 % in 2015, 53 % in 2020. The curve is U-shaped, not monotonic. The 1990 peak coincided with the Balkan war; the 2015 trough with the acute refugee crisis. The 2020 level is still below 1990.

How do women and men differ?

Women report higher support for gender equality, LGBTQ and environmental protection (WVS/SOM all waves). Differences on immigration and EU are small. The gap widens in younger cohorts — especially since 2015.

Are opinion data comparable across countries?

With caution. WVS and EVS use the same wordings but translation and cultural interpretation differ. Country ranking is more robust than absolute percentages.

Why do different surveys give different results?

Question wording (‘fewer refugees’ vs ‘reduced immigration’), response options (five- vs ten-point scale), sampling method (phone vs web panel) and context (before/after a major event) can explain differences of 5–15 pp.

Does attitude change mean behaviour changes too?

Not automatically. Stated tolerance correlates weakly with actual behaviour (residence, socialising, hiring). The attitude-behaviour gap is well documented in social psychology.

Culture & values

Value shift

Values over time — what Swedes answered 1990 → 2022

The World Values Survey and SOM Institute have asked the same questions for three decades. Trust is stable, religion's importance has risen, acceptance of homosexuality has moved 6.38 → 8.71 (1–10 scale), and opinion on immigration follows a U-curve: 61 % → 40 % → 53 %.

How to read this

Data in context

How to read this

The charts below show what the numbers say — not an interpretation. Where data point in different directions (e.g. stable trust but rising insecurity) we show both series rather than pick a narrative.

Swedish values — WVS Wave 2–7 + SOM Institute, 1990–2022

1990–2022 · percent of respondents · Sverige

Share of Swedes agreeing with four values questions. Acceptance of homosexuality is measured on a 1–10 scale and multiplied by 10 so it fits the same chart.

Swedish values — WVS Wave 2–7 + SOM Institute, 1990–2022 · percent of respondents · 1990–2022 · Sverige
År	Religion ‘important’ (%)	Proud of Sweden (%)	Trust most people (%)	Acceptance of homosex. (1–10 ×10)
1 990	24	84	—	63,8
1 996	31	89,4	59	68,4
2 000	—	—	62	—
2 006	36,9	91,8	—	80,8
2 010	—	—	62	—
2 011	34	94,1	—	82,3
2 015	—	—	64	—
2 020	36,3	93,2	62	87,1
2 022	—	—	63	—

Method: World Values Survey waves 2–7 combined with the SOM Institute's annual surveys. Measurement points are unevenly spaced; the lines interpolate between waves.

Source: World Values Survey, Wave 2–7 · SOM Institute, University of Gothenburg

Sources & method

Data source

Definitions

— WVS ‘religion viktig’ (fråga F034/A006): andel som svarar ‘mycket viktig’ eller ‘ganska viktig’. Sverigetal per våg: Wave 2 (1990) 24 %, Wave 3 (1996) 31 %, Wave 5 (2006) 37 %, Wave 6 (2011) 34 %, Wave 7 (2017–2020) 36 %.
— WVS ‘nationell stolthet’ (G006): andel ‘mycket’ eller ‘ganska stolt’ över att vara svensk. Wave 2 (1990) 84 %, Wave 6 (2011) 94 %, Wave 7 (2017–2020) 93 %.
— SOM ‘ta emot färre flyktingar’: andel som anser detta vara ett ‘bra förslag’ i SOM-institutets nationella undersökning.
— Tillit: ‘det går att lita på de flesta människor’ — andel som instämmer (SOM).

Uncertainties

— WVS för Sverige saknas i Wave 4 (endast EVS-data 1999).
— Att religionens självrapporterade betydelse har stigit sedan 1990 går delvis emot den etablerade sekulariseringsbilden — förändringen kan drivas av demografisk sammansättning i urvalet snarare än av att tidigare sekulära svenskar blivit mer religiösa. WVS-svaren rapporteras oviktade per våg.
— Frågeformuleringar har varierat något mellan vågorna — jämförelse av riktning i tid är säkrare än absolut nivå.

Sources for this page

The data comes from official primary sources.

WVS · Irregular
World Values Survey Wave 7 (2017–2022), Joint EVS/WVS-dataset
Värderingsindex för Sverige (självuttryck och sekulär-rationella värden)
Latest data point 31 Dec 2020 · Source published 1 Jun 2024

Read the full investigation of how Sweden has changed.

Back to overview →

The question this page answers

How have Swedes' values changed over time according to recurring opinion and attitude surveys?

At a glance

Key figures — the most important numbers on this page

‘Religion is important’ 1990 → 2020

24 → 36 %

WVS Wave 2 → Wave 7. Share answering very/quite important.

Acceptance of homosexuality (1–10)

6.38 → 8.71

WVS 1990 → 2020. Scale 1 ‘never justifiable’ – 10 ‘always justifiable’.

Proud to be Swedish

84 → 93 %

WVS 1990 → 2017–2020. Share very/quite proud.

Trust most people

≈ 63 %

SOM 2023 — Sweden reports the OECD's highest measured interpersonal trust, stable since 1996.

‘Receive fewer refugees’

61 → 40 → 53 %

SOM 1990 · 2015 · 2020 — the U-curve of immigration opinion.

Respondents/wave, WVS Sweden

> 1,000

Nationally representative sample, face-to-face or web panel. Confidence interval ±3 pp.

What does the data show?

Objective observations — not interpretations

Opinion data show how Swedes have answered in recurring surveys — not how they actually behave or what values they hold unconsciously. The gap between stated tolerance and actual behaviour (e.g. residential patterns) is well documented.
Swedish values consistently sit in the extreme corner of Inglehart's cultural map: high secular-rational dimension, high self-expression dimension. This position is stable across all seven WVS waves 1981–2022.
Between generations there are clear differences on gender equality, LGBTQ rights and environment. Within generations change is smaller — most values follow the cohort, not the life cycle.
Regional differences (urban/rural) are smaller than party differences but larger than gender and age differences on many questions. Education explains more variance than income.
A rising self-report (e.g. ‘religion is important’) can be driven by demographic change in the sample rather than individual attitude shift. Cross-sectional data cannot separate these mechanisms without panel studies.
Attitude change shows simultaneity — not cause. WVS data say nothing about why the answers move, only that they move.

Method note
The World Values Survey (WVS) and European Values Study (EVS) are conducted as nationally representative cross-sectional surveys every 5–9 years; the SOM Institute annually. All three use random samples of 1,000–3,400 persons per wave with a margin of error of about ±2–3 pp for national figures. Question wordings have varied slightly between waves — direction over time is safer to compare than absolute level. Wave 4 (1999–2004) is missing for Sweden in WVS; only EVS data exist. Separating cohort effects (‘you keep the values of your youth’) from period effects (‘everyone changes at once’) and ageing requires panel studies or pseudo-panels — single WVS waves cannot do it. We therefore present the trends as observations, not explanations.

Definitions

How the numbers are counted — and what they do not cover

Value: Deep-lying, relatively stable judgement of what is desirable (freedom, equality, order). Changes slowly, often over generations.Usually measured via batteries of items (Schwartz Value Survey, WVS Inglehart index).
Attitude: Contextual assessment of a specific object (immigration, EU, nuclear power). Moves faster than values and responds to events, media and political rhetoric.
Norm: Collective expectation of behaviour in a given situation. May deviate from both values (‘I dislike it’) and behaviour (‘but I do it anyway’).
Behaviour: Actual action — voting, residence, consumption. Often differs from stated attitudes; social desirability bias affects survey answers.
Social trust: Share who agree that ‘most people can be trusted’. The SOM Institute measures annually; Sweden ~63 %, among the highest measured worldwide.Foreign studies (Uslaner et al.) distinguish generalised trust from particularised trust (in known persons).
Tolerance: Acceptance of opinions, behaviours or groups one personally dislikes. WVS measures via the ‘who would you not want as neighbour’ battery.
Individualism / collectivism: Cultural dimension (Hofstede, Triandis). Sweden is extremely individualist on Hofstede's scale yet simultaneously collectivist in institutional trust.
Secularisation: Reduced role of religion in society. Sweden is among the most secularised countries in most measures; self-reported ‘importance of religion’ has however not fallen in WVS 1990–2020 — likely a compositional effect.
Generation / cohort: Group born within the same period. Cohort effects are changes that stay with the group through life, distinct from life-cycle or period effects.
Opinion survey: Questionnaire to a random sample to estimate the population distribution. Quality depends on sampling frame, response rate and question wording.
Panel study: Same individuals interviewed several times. Can separate individual change from sampling effects — but suffers from attrition and panel fatigue.
Cross-sectional study: New sample at each measurement. Captures the population distribution but cannot separate individual from compositional change.
Sample: Randomly selected individuals from the population. Probability sampling is required for margin of error to be meaningful; web panels are probability samples only if recruitment is.
Confidence interval: Statistical interval that with a given probability (usually 95 %) covers the true population value. ±3 pp for national figures at n ≈ 1,000.

Primary sources

Agencies and research institutions behind this page

agencies/institutions

reports & studies

primary datasets

Frequently asked questions

Short answers to what is most often discussed

Yes. Sweden sits consistently in the extreme corner of Inglehart's cultural map (high secular-rational, high self-expression) — closest to Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands. This has been stable across all WVS waves since 1981.

Logical next steps if you want to understand the background

Values over time — what Swedes answered 1990 → 2022

How to read this

Immigration opinion — SOM Institute (the U-curve)

Human consequence

Sources for this page

At a glance

What does the data show?

Definitions

Primary sources

Frequently asked questions

Related topics

Media vs reality

Social trust