Abstract
This article focuses on the position of immigrants on the Finnish labor marketin thecontext of recent migration history and the disintegration of the traditional paid-worksociety. Finland is a so-called late immigration country, where a positive trend inmigratory movements did not begin until the beginning of the l 990s and where thelabor migration phase after WWII was experienced not as an immigration countrybut as ane of emigration. One outcome of this is that immigrants are treated in societyas a social burden rather than a labor resource. Results of an empirical study concerningimmigrants in the Finnish labor market indicate that more than a half ofimmigrants who have been residing in Finland for several years have an unstablelabor market career, and almost one-third of them are in the margins of the Finnishlabor market. It seems that in Finland, as in the labor markets in many other postindustrialsocieties, immigrants are acting as a buffer against upswings and downswingsin the economy.
Highlights
This article focuses on the position of immigrants on the Finnish labor marketin the context of recent migration history and the disintegration of the traditional paid-work society
Beföre the l 990s, migration to Finland typically consisted of retum migrants who had left Finland earlier.Westem industrial nations built their postwar wealth by recruiting millions of people from different parts of the Mediterranean
In the late l 980s and the early l 990s, Finland became a real destination för immigration: more people arrived in the country than departed
Summary
This article focuses on the position of immigrants on the Finnish labor marketin the context of recent migration history and the disintegration of the traditional paid-work society. Finland is a so-called late immigration country, where a positive trend in migratory movements did not begin until the beginning of the l 990s and where the labor migration phase after WWII was experienced not as an immigration country but as ane of emigration. One outcome of this is that immigrants are treated in society as a social burden rather than a labor resource. In the first years ofthe 1990s Finland received asylum seekers especially from Somalia and the förmer Yugoslavia This was the beginning of what is termed ethnic return migration, referring to Finns who moved from the förmer Soviet Union. Finland's immigration policy has not been determinedby labor market considerations; instead it has developed as a result of extemal pressures, such as intemational agreements, or on the hasis of ethnic loyalty. The separation of immigration and labor market policies is reflected in issues directly related to immigrants as well as administrative practices that indirectly touch upon immigration issues: because a clear-cut vision is lacking, o:fficialsare in a very powerful role at the practical level as architects of immigration policy
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