The educational reforms implemented in Sweden since the end of the 1980s can be characterized in terms of decentralization, deregulation, marketization, and choice (e.g., Lundahl, et al., 2013). These educational reforms have dramatically changed the landscape of Swedish school system (Björklund, et al., 2004).

The series of reforms reorientate the educational economic structures, and introduce a quasi-market mechanism into the educational system. On the one hand, municipalities have full responsibility for organizing compulsory education, which is financed by local tax revenue and a central governmental grant. This leads to great disparity in the level of educational resources across municipalities. On the other hand, the independent school reform encourages establishment of independent schools with private providers. Together with the launch of a voucher system with school choice, they facilitate the market-like Swedish education system.

The opportunities offered through the allowance of school choice in combination with the growing amount of new schools and new educational providers also lead to a changing school market structure in the upper secondary education in Sweden. Increasing mobility streams of students commuting over municipal borders has been observed over time, so has the travel distance to school for Swedish students since 2000 (Andersson et al., 2012).

The main intentions of these reforms were to increase education quality, equity and efficiency through choice and competition (Ball, 1998; Erixon Arreman & Holm 2011). However, the choice – competition model of a market-like education system in Sweden has caused an increasing discrepancy in the social ethnic composition as well as the achievement gap between Swedish schools (Gustafsson & Yang Hansen, 2009; Böhlmark, Holmlund, & Lindahl, 2015).

It should also be noticed however that private providers seem to have an inclination to establish schools in high-income areas (Viberg & Wolkmar, 2014). Lack of information regarding school options (Lidström et al, 2014) and lack of alternative schools and a significant increase in school closures in the rural areas (Kähkönen, 2007; Åberg-Bengtsson, 2009) makes the patterns of school markets vary greatly in different municipalities in Sweden.  The uneven development of quasi-school market imposes further threats to educational equity.

Applying the analytical model for studying labor market developed by Statistic Sweden, Fjellman, Yang Hansen & Beach (2014) identified spatial patterns of the Swedish school markets between 1998 and 2008. They observed that the number of the school markets has decreased and become concentrated. Some school markets, especially in urban areas, increased in geographical size and student capture, while others decreased. They also highlighted increasing streams of student commute mainly towards metropolitans and urban municipalities and the tendencies expanded over time.

Give the uneven and changing quasi-market structure in Sweden, it is an important question to ask who commutes into metropolitan markets and if the characteristics of this group of commuters changed between 1997 and 2008? The aim of the study is therefore to investigate the changes in social ethnic composition of students who choose to commute to another municipality to obtain their upper secondary education.

Investigating consequences of reform-related marketization will have important contributions to debate on effectiveness, choice and competition in educational sectors in a European and a global context, where many countries have implemented similar reforms to various extents.

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