Upper-secondary school segregation in stockholm metropolitan area: The relationship between commuting distance and school characteristics

Although free school choice policies are often proposed as strategies to decouple residential and school segregation, research has found that they may actually increase segregation. This study investigates an underexplored aspect of these policies: the role of commuting in influencing school segregation patterns. Using Swedish register data from Stockholm Metropolitan Area, we analyse ethnic and socioeconomic segregation across residential neighbourhoods and upper-secondary schools. We examine students' distances to the nearest schools offering their chosen programs and their actual commuting distances in relation to the schools' characteristics. Our findings reveal that students with immigrant backgrounds, despite living closer to the nearest schools offering their chosen programs than native peers, tend to travel longer distances to attend their chosen schools. For native students, choosing nearby schools is associated with selecting more privileged institutions that have higher proportions of native students and higher average income levels. In contrast, students with immigrant backgrounds often travel longer distances to reach schools with characteristics similar to those attended by native students. These results challenge simplistic assumptions about the segregation-reducing effects of free school choice policies and highlight the complex interplay among the uneven distribution of educational opportunities, home-to-school mobility, and school selection strategies. • Upper-secondary school segregation is lower than residential segregation. • Native students travel shorter distances to reach high-status schools. • Immigrant-background students must travel further to reach similar schools. • Desegregation reflects offsetting mobility patterns under school choice.