Cultural Demography
The Swedish population is estimated to be over nine million. Over one million people within the total population of Sweden reside in the country's capital city of Stockholm.
A majority of Swedes are Lutheran, however other Christian denominations -- Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Baptist -- are also represented. There are also Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist communities in Sweden.
Sweden's indigenous population is composed of Swedes, however, close to one million people across Sweden are either foreign born or the children of immigrants. Finnish and Sami minorities make up part of the Swedish population. There are also foreign-born or first-generation immigrants from other parts of Scandinavia, such as Denmark and Norway. People from various other parts of Europe, Turkey, Asia, Africa and South America also make up the population Sweden.
Swedish is the major language, however the languages of all immigrant populations are also spoken. Swedish is a Germanic language related to Danish and Norwegian but different in pronunciation and orthography. English is by far the leading foreign language, particularly among students and those under age 50.
Human Development
The literacy rate in Sweden is almost ubiquitous at 99 percent.
Sweden has one of the world's highest life expectancies. The life expectancy rate was averaged at 80 years of age in recent years (83 years for females and 77 years for males). The infant mortality rate is a low 3.44 deaths for every 1,000 live births.
Sweden has an extensive child-care system that guarantees a place for all young children from two to six years old in a public day-care facility. From ages seven to 16, children attend compulsory comprehensive school. After completing the ninth grade, 90 percent attend upper secondary school for either academic or technical education.
Swedes benefit from an extensive social welfare system that provides for childcare and maternity and paternity leave, a ceiling on health care costs, old-age pensions, and sick leave among other benefits. Parents are entitled to a total of 12 months' paid leave between birth and the child's eighth birthday, with one of those months reserved specifically for the father. A ceiling on health care costs makes it easier for Swedish workers to take time off for medical reasons.
About 9.9 percent of GDP is spent on health expenditures in this country; about 6.6 percent of GDP is spent on educational expenditures. Access to education, sanitation, water, and health is regarded to be excellent -- among the best in the world.
One notable measure used to determine a country's quality of life is the Human Development Index (HDI), which has been compiled annually since 1990 by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The HDI is a composite of several indicators, which measure a country's achievements in three main arenas of human development: longevity, knowledge and education, as well as economic standard of living. In recent rankings of most of the countries in the world, the HDI placed Sweden in the very high human development category -- indeed, toward the top of the rankings at 9th place.
Note: Although the concept of human development is complicated and cannot be properly captured by values and indices, the HDI, which is calculated and updated annually, offers a wide-ranging assessment of human development in certain countries, not based solely upon traditional economic and financial indicators.