Har du ens läst domen? – Domstolshandlingar som källa till samtida svensk prostitution

Abstract

Prostitution has for a long time been an understudied field in economics. Due in part to a lack of quantitative and empirical material, itself largely a result of the illegality or semi-illegality of the activity in most countries, the factors that explain the prevalence of, and pricing in, prostitution have remained largely undiscussed. In the last 20 year, this have begun to change: new theories – notably by Edlund & Korn (2002), Rao et al (2003) and Della Giusta et al (2009) – have been formulated and the rise of internet based escort sites have made large scale quantitative studies possible. This thesis examines if, and in what way, court documents can help expand the understanding of the economics of prostitution in Sweden. When it comes to pricing, we find a mostly stable picture during the period of 2019-2023. In contrast to a number of international studies as well as experiences reported from within the sex selling community in Sweden, no decline in prices are found during the covid-19 pandemic. Nor has the prices increased since the pandemic ended, in contrast to unusually high inflation in other areas of the Swedish economy. In addition to this, a number of court documents show that actual prices are lower than advertised on the web and that the bargaining power is influenced by the sellers' situation, suggesting that studies relying only on data from escort sites should be careful extrapolating their findings to real world application. The studies find a marked increase in young men among indicted buyers, especially low income men with non swedish citizenship. One possible reason for this is suggested, the male-female ratio that is especially skewed for migrants in Sweden in the cohorts born in the 1990’s.