This report examines who the Swedish Migration Agency’s case officers and decision-makers actually are, what decisions they make, and to what extent their socioeconomic and demographic profiles covary with those decisions. It provides a detailed description of these characteristics and focuses on how gender, experience, place of birth, and whether they have a legal education are associated with grant rates and processing times for asylum applications. The report is based on detailed data from the Swedish Migration Agency and Statistics Sweden covering the period 2020–2023. The analysis includes 814 case officers and decision-makers and 55,312 first-time applications.

Key conclusions and recommendations 

  • There are no statistically significant differences in grant rates associated with the gender or background of case officers or decision-makers. The results provide no support for hypotheses of systematic generosity among certain groups, which is important from a legal certainty perspective. At the same time, legal safeguards should continue to be closely monitored by the Swedish Migration Agency.
  • Processing times vary slightly depending on case officers’ experience and place of birth rather than the substance of the case, but the differences are small and often explainable. Nevertheless, there are good reasons to work toward shorter processing times, as this benefits both applicants and integration. Measures should, however, be designed so that legal certainty is maintained, for example through process analyses and targeted resource reinforcement.
  • The analysis shows no systematic effect of case officers’ gender, education, experience, or place of birth on the likelihood of granting asylum. However, previous research suggests that similarity between case officers and applicants may influence decisions. The report therefore recommends further research into how matching on, for example, place of birth or gender may affect grant rates and processing times.
  • The Swedish Migration Agency has access to extensive register data that can be used to make case handling and decision-making more efficient, for example through early rough sorting of cases and identification of bottlenecks. Data-driven models can serve as support but must not replace human judgment, as this would risk undermining legal certainty. The recommendation is therefore to use register data cautiously for process improvements without compromising individual and legally secure assessments.

About the authors

The authors of the report are Henrik Andersson, Associate Professor of Economics, Institute for Housing and Urban Research (IBF), Uppsala University; Kristoffer Jutvik, PhD in Political Science, Department of Culture and Society, Linköping University; and Linna Martén, Associate Professor of Economics, the Swedish Institute for Social Research, Stockholm University.

The report was published on 2 June 2026.

Photo: Artem Polezhaev via Unsplash.