Towards a Better Life: Family Capital and Upward Social Mobility Among Finnish Forestry Employees in the Extended 1950s

Abstract

Abstract The article focuses on the questions of the vocational choice, education, and occupation of forestry employees in post-WWII Finland. Extensive oral history material and biographical interviews with Finnish forestry officers and foresters illuminate the concepts of family capital and upward social mobility at the individual, everyday level. In Finland, occupations in forestry are often inherited. The sons of forestry employees profit from family capital as they become forestry employees themselves, and there are many so-called “forestry families” in Finland. Because the situation in Finland after the war strongly favored education, young men were encouraged to educate themselves in the hope of obtaining a better future, economically and socially, for themselves, and also to provide more skilled workers for the nation. The pursuit and acquisition of upward social mobility, occupational prestige, and higher socio-economic positions as compared to their fathers was typical for these forestry employees, as well as the whole of Finnish society in the extended 1950s. The article was written as part of a project called Happy Days? The Everyday Life and Nostalgia of the Extended 1950s, led by Professor Hanna Snellman of Jyväskylä University and Helsinki University and financed by the Academy of Finland.