# The Spaces of Municipalities and Regions in Sweden and the Distribution of Educational Assets

Mikael Börjesson, Pablo Lillo Cea, Laura Giorio, Laureline Brun, and Clara Comte
HERO, Uppsala University

The responsibility for providing and running preschools, compulsory education and upper secondary education is blended, but the municipalities take the largest part. They care for the education of the majority of children up to 19 years of age, and in many cases, there are few private options. They raise the funds through taxes, employ the staff, build and maintain the facilities, and plan and develop the educational provision. However, the conditions for taking on such responsibility vary substantially. The smallest municipalities amount to just above 2,000 inhabitants, while the largest, Stockholm stad, has almost 1 million. Since Sweden is a vast and sparsely populated country, there is a large difference between urban and rural municipalities. Urban regions are divided into wealthier central parts and poorer suburbs, while rural areas are differentiated along their economic activity. Demographic conditions vary, where rural areas face problems of depopulation, while urban centres often have growing population and uneven housing markets.

To understand how these dimensions interplay with each other, we build a space of Swedish municipalities and a space of Swedish regions. We use geometric data analysis to characterise municipalities and regions through demographic and socioeconomic indicators, including educational attainment, the number of graduates, and the number of adult students. We analyse the main dimensions of the spaces and explore possible geographical pattern and urban/rural divide in connection with the characterising variables. Constructing a space of municipalities and a space of regions allows us to put the two spaces in relation with each other, representing regions after the spread of municipalities in the space. We focus on the educational characterisation of these spaces and put them in relation with educational offer, attempting to answer three main sets of questions with a temporal perspective:

    1. How are educational assets (in the form of level of education and institution types) distributed over the municipalities and regions and how does this change over time?
    2. How is the educational offer spread over the municipalities and regions with regard to educational levels and types, public and private providers, and specialised institutions such as universities, university colleges, as well as folkhögskolor? How has this offer changed over time?
    3. How are the distribution of educational assets in the space related to the educational offer? Are changes in the offer effecting the distribution?
