With our growing defense, more people will have to do military service in the future. And the question is whether those who do military service also reflect society in general? At the National Duty and Probation Office, those who are to do military service are selected. There they say that things like gender or origin in general are not included as selection criteria.
- We only proceed based on how they pass the muster. The law says "best suited" and that's really the only thing we should start from, says Marinette Nyh Radebo, head of communications at the Swedish Liabilities and Probation Office.
Foreign background
SVT has had access to statistics from the National Service and Probation Office which show the proportion with a foreign background among those who did military service and who were selected for conscription in 2020. The diagram below shows how low the proportion with a foreign background is compared to the group as a whole.
Low percentage. The proportion of foreign-born among those who later completed conscription from the mustering year 2020 was clearly lower than those who were included in the mustering documents. Photo: SVT Nyhetsgrafiken
Greater diversity is in demand
During People and defense earlier this year, a debate arose about how people with a foreign background generally have a lower willingness to defend themselves. Based on these figures, however, no conclusions can be drawn regarding the willingness to defend in the various groups. On the contrary, completely different things can weigh more heavily. Nevertheless, the defense forces believe that this is not good. Greater diversity would make the defense stronger, they reason there.
- If our military units reflect the full breadth of our society, they will become more creative, they will be better at solving the most difficult tasks in the most difficult environments, says Michael Cherinette, head of education for the Swedish Armed Forces.
According to Michael Cherinette, it is difficult to find an explanation for why the proportion with a foreign background is so low.
- What I and the Armed Forces can do to increase the proportion of Swedish citizens with a foreign background who do military service, it's probably roughly the same things we can do to generally motivate more 18-year-olds to do basic military training, says Michael Cherinette.