Finnish Labour Research Articles

Promotion of Self-employment: Manager Justifications for Online Labor Platform Operations

The emergence of online labor platforms (OLPs) has raised concerns about the treatment of platform workers and the legality of OLPs’ contractual relations and control. This study examines how managers (CEOs/founders) justify OLPs’ contractual relations and market control within the frames of critical platform work discussions and the Finnish labor market model. By using justification theory and market control classification as analytical tools, this qualitative study reveals that managers justify OLPs’ control and contractual relations by referring to critical discussions and features of Finnish labor market model. In justifications, managers either adopt the normative features of the model or criticize the societal neglect of self-employed workers. The model’s emphasis on full-time employment and legal questions around the platform economy seems to challenge the legitimacy of all OLP companies on some level. Despite OLPs’ operational differences, all managers justify OLPs with the idea of promoting self-employment within the Finnishlabor market.

Association Between Gendered Workplaces and the Length of Childcare Leave

Previous research indicates that mothers base the length of their childcare leave on individual opportunity costs. While workplace dynamics and peer influences may affect the duration of the leave, empirical evidence remains inconclusive. This study investigates the association between childcare leave length and workplace characteristics, as well as peer influences in the Finnish institutional context. In Finland, mothers can extend their earnings-related childcare leave with a flat-rate home care allowance until their child turns three years old. At the same time, they are entitled to subsidised day care, allowing them to choose the length of their childcare leave. Our results show that, in the gender-segregated Finnish labour market, the length of childcare leave among mothers varies based on employment sector, number of employees, peers’ leave length, and the share of women in the workplace.

Finnish labour reforms, social insurance and the position of trade unions

Finnish labour reforms, social insurance and the position of trade unions

Kielikoulutus valmistamassa monikieliseen työelämään

Over the last couple of decades, working life in Finland has become more multilingual, multi-sited, mobile and digitalised. At the same time, Finland increasingly relies on work-based immigration to fill gaps in the workforce. Since language skills are considered key to employment, language education plays an important role in migrants’ integration into the Finnish labour market and work communities. This article discusses the role of language(s) and language education in increasingly complex working life contexts with particular emphasis on Finnish as a second language. We first provide an overview of ongoing developments in Finnish working life and issues regarding recruitment, language requirements and language practices at multilingual workplaces. Second, we describe how language education in vocational education, integration training and higher education is (re)designed to facilitate migrants’ employment. Finally, we discuss how work communities and language educators can respond to the challenges of an increasingly complex and multilingual work life.

Part-Time Workers’ Employment Trajectories by Length of Hours and Reason for Working Part-Time: An 8-Year Follow-Up Study

Using the Finnish Labour Force Surveys merged with register-based follow-up data, we analyzed how different characteristics of part-time work predict employees’ and entrepreneurs’ employment trajectories in an 8-year follow-up. We analyzed careers by the length of weekly working hours and the reason for part-time work, that is, childcare, studies, health, part-time pension, other voluntary choice, or if full-time work was not available (involuntary part-time). We applied sequence analysis to define work career clusters based on the continuum of spells spent in different labor market statuses, that is, in upper and lower white-collar, manual, or entrepreneurial employment, unemployment, studying, pensioned, or inactivity. According to the results, involuntary part-timers have a significantly higher probability of entering the unemployment trajectory than full-time workers. Those working part-time hours due to care responsibilities were also more likely to face frequent periods of unemployment, whereas part-time work combined with studies was associated with stable white-collar trajectories. Our results also show that weakened labor outcomes following marginal part-time jobs associate with disability retirement instead of unemployment later in time, most probably determined by ill health. Therefore, we suggest further studies to consider marginal part-time workers’ health as the determinant of weakening career outcomes. Overall, our results highlight the need to improve part-time working conditions, a concern that organizations like the OECD have also raised. This improvement could reduce the risk of unemployment, promote health, extend work careers, and consequently increase the employment rate.

Career success of expatriates: the impacts of career capital, expatriate type, career type and career stage

PurposeThis paper investigates whether career capital (CC) development abroad, expatriate type, career type and career stage affect expatriates' career success in terms of perceived marketability and the number of promotions.Design/methodology/approachThe study presents findings from a 2020 follow-up study among 327 expatriates, including assigned expatriates (AEs) (n = 117) and self-initiated expatriates (SIEs) (n = 220), who worked abroad in 2015 and 2016. Among that group, 186 had continued their international career, while 141 had repatriated. Structural equation modeling with robust maximum likelihood estimation was used to test this study's hypotheses. MPlus 8.6 software supported the analysis.FindingsThe study outlines that CC developed abroad positively impacts perceived marketability and the number of promotions. Second, repatriates reported a greater degree of perceived marketability than those continuing an international career. Career type did not predict the number of promotions. The expatriate type did not influence any of the career success measures. Finally, expatriates in their late-career stage did not achieve a similar level of career success as those in other career stages.Research limitations/implicationsAll the expatriates were university-educated Finnish engineers and business professionals, and the career benefits of expatriation could differ for different sample groups. The study calls for more context-sensitive global careers research. The findings have positive implications for self-guided career actors considering working abroad. Organizations could focus more of their global talent attraction, management and career efforts on SIEs.Originality/valueTo analyze the impacts of these four antecedents on the career success of expatriates, the authors cooperated with two Finnish labor unions in 2020 to explore the careers of 327 expatriates, having surveyed the same group in 2015/2016. Such follow-up studies are not very common in expatriation research since it is difficult to keep track of expatriates who change locations and employers.

Getting a head start: capital inheritance and the labour market entry of Finnish business graduates

Previous studies have associated participation in higher education with the formation of middle-class advantages. Studies have shown that graduates from affluent family backgrounds gain more advantages from graduate degrees and secure better job opportunities than their less privileged counterparts. Drawing on the Bourdieusian framework, this study uses qualitative interview data (n = 29) to examine how recent business graduates mobilise economic, cultural and social capital for their entry into the Finnish labour market. The context of the Finnish welfare society brings novel insights to research on the inheritance of different forms of capital. Our findings reveal that although middle-class students do have a head start in entry to the graduate labour market, the Finnish society and higher education system even out social inequalities in graduate employment as working-class students may utilise institutional resources, socialise with peers and accumulate work experience to cross structural and dispositional barriers.

Persistent Paradoxes, Pragmatic Postfeminism: How Young Women Negotiate the Contradictions of Gender Equality

ABSTRACT Due to social change and gender detraditionalisation, young women in the Global North have been positioned as agentic subjects who can benefit from increasing freedom in education and work. However, there remains a gap between gender equality as a powerful cultural norm and the persistent inequalities that continue to shape people’s lives. Focusing on Finland, this article examines how this gap is negotiated by young women transitioning from post-compulsory education to work in two different fields: care and media. Building on the theories of postfeminism as a sensibility, the article analyses how field-specific conceptualisations of gender equality and patterns of gendered disadvantages in the two fields shape young women’s understandings of their imagined futures in the Finnish labour market. The article develops the notion of “pragmatic postfeminism” to show that young women selectively deploy elements of postfeminist sensibility as a pragmatic resource to manage the persistent gender equality paradoxes of the Finnish labour market.

Shaping worker-citizenship: young vocational education graduates’ labour market positionings within new adulthood

ABSTRACT Young vocational graduates face many expectations related to the norms of worker-citizenship when entering the labour market. Due to contemporary uncertainties and the new realities of adulthood, meeting these expectations may not be easy. These expectations might also conflict with young adults’ desires. This paper examines how vocational education graduates position themselves in the labour market and what kind of worker-citizenship they produce in their working-life stories. The study is based on 32 individual interviews with 18- to 25-year-old vocational graduates with different positions in the Finnish labour market. The findings support earlier research on the importance of assuming the position of worker-citizen for these graduates. In new adulthood, they aim but are also forced to shape their worker-citizenship when, for some, vocational qualification has not redeemed its promises. Based on empirical findings, the article argues that ideals maintained in vocational education may need to be shaped within the unpredictable realities of new adulthood.

Essential? COVID-19 and highly educated Africans in Finland’s segmented labour market

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to characterise the position of highly educated African migrants in the Finnish labour market and to examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on that position.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is based on the biographical work stories of 17 highly educated African migrant workers in four occupation areas in Finland: healthcare, cleaning, restaurant and transport. The sample was partly purposively and partly theoretically determined. The authors used content driven thematic analysis technique, combined with by the biographical narrative concept of turning points.FindingsUsing the case of highly educated African migrants in the Finnish labour market, the authors show how student migration policies reinforce a pattern of division of labour and occupations that allocate migrant workers to typical low skilled low status occupations in the secondary sector regardless of level of education, qualification and work experience. They also show how the unique labour and skill demands of the COVID-19 pandemic incidentally made these typical migrant occupations essential, resulting in increased employment and work security for this group of migrant workers.Research limitations/implicationsThis research and the authors’ findings are limited in scope owing to sample size and methodology. To improve applicability of findings, future studies could expand the scope of enquiry using e.g. quantitative surveys and include other stakeholders in the study group.Originality/valueThe paper adds to the knowledge on how migration policies contribute to labour market dualisation and occupational segmentation in Finland, illustrated by the case of highly educated African migrant workers.

Studying Industrial Oral History during the Pandemic – Ethical and Methodological Questions

This article discusses an oral history project that examines homer production at the Högfors Ironworks in Karkkila. This was a cooperative project of the University of Helsinki, the Finnish Labour Archives and the Finnish Foundry Museum in Karkkila. A “homer” (firabeli in Finnish) is an object made for one’s own benefit by a worker using his or her factory’s equipment and materials. The article focuses on ethical and methodological issues affecting the study of industrial oral history during the COVID-19 pandemic. What kind of practical and ethical challenges were faced, how could they be solved and how did they affect a project? These issues are reflected in relation to recent academic discussions on conducting oral history interviews during the pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic affected the process in numerous ways. The conducting of interviews required a unique solution based on the local services of Karkkila. The risks for interviewers and interviewees were minimized. However, the downside was that a video interview during the long pandemic period might have been a psychologically stressing experience for some interviewees. The interviewees’ ideas about homer practices were similar to those of the previous oral history collections. The major distinction between the Karkkila collection and the previous collections lies in the foundry industry itself.

Employers, the state and highly skilled migration: an employer-based study on ICT sector companies in Finland

ABSTRACT Employer-based migration research has paid little attention to the formation of relationships between the state and employers, and their distinct, yet interconnected, roles in shaping highly skilled migration. This study examines how employers perceive their role in relation to the state’s interwoven promotion and regulation practices, with an emphasis on information and communication technology (ICT) sector companies in Finland. The results indicate that the slow, complex and resource-intensive regulation-related migration bureaucracy limits companies’ recruiting efforts in Finnish labour markets, thereby working against the state’s political goal to alleviate labour shortages and enhance competitiveness in the Finnish ICT sector by promoting employment from outside of Finland. Furthermore, the companies expect the state to lower the barriers and bottlenecks of the employment process and play a larger role in promoting highly skilled migration by providing, e.g. support services, easy access to information related to residence permit processes and financial backing during all phases of the employment process. We emphasize that employers’ role in relation to the state in highly skilled migration is historically path-dependent and varies in different regional politico-economic contexts.

Understanding inclusive entrepreneurship

A recent OECD report recognises that the limited scope for immigrant women to integrate into mainstream Finnish society has kept them out of the labour market. In fact, a woman with migrant background faces several challenges to get access to the Finnish labour force and this has prompted them to become self-employed in small business, particularly in the northern part of Finland. However, establishing a small business and its operation induces diverse problems in this remote, mainly rural region. An inclusive entrepreneurship policy may support improving their condition in entrepreneurship. The study explores the main factors hindering the financial and socio-cultural inclusion of women immigrants in Northern Finland. A thematic analysis of cultural and economic inclusivity, based on descriptive phenomenology, helps understand and reconstruct a policy of inclusive societies in the context of rural entrepreneurship.

Occupational change, computer use and the complementarity effect in the digital age: Evidence from Finland

This article examines the pattern of occupational change in Finland between 2013 and 2018 in light of hypotheses derived from skill- and routine-biased technological change arguments. As extensions to mainstream studies on occupational change, two alternative means of classifying occupations by skill level are used, and data from Statistics Finland’s Quality of Work Survey are combined with data from the Finnish Labour Force Survey. The analysis reveals a pattern of skill-biased change and indications of a digital divide between high-skilled and other occupations with no signs of job polarization. Reasons for country-wide differences in occupational change patterns and the implications of differences in the means of classifying occupations for the results are discussed with suggestions of topics for further studies.

Restructuring of Finnish Trade Unions – the Growing Importance of Women

The membership profile of Finnish trade unions has changed from male-dominated industrial workers to female-dominated service and public sector workers who are more highly educated. The Finnish labour market is strongly divided into female and male occupations and sectors, and these intersectional differences play an important part in the differentiation of developmental paths. The erosion of membership is mainly due to the rapid growth of the independent unemployment fund (YTK) competing with unemployment funds associated with trade unions. YTK has been much more successful in recruiting private sector male workers than women. Men’s decisions not to join the union are related to the shift in the motivation to unionise from social custom to instrumental reasons. Along with the gender majority shift, union identification has changed, and unions need to carry out ‘identity work’ to attain members. The shift in gender proportions has also had consequences for the collective bargaining system.

Employment gaps of foreign-born women in Finland: an intercategorical intersectionality approach

Abstract Background Previous studies have shown that foreign-born women have multiple disadvantages in the Finnish labor market leading to an employment gap between foreign-born women, foreign born men and the general population. The employment gap negatively affects the lives of many women and their children (e.g. poverty), contributing to disparities in health and wellbeing, as well as underutilization and waste of human capital in the society. Methods Using data from the cross-sectional survey on well-being among foreign born population (FinMonik), conducted in Finland 2018, we compared employment outcomes and the prevalence of different barriers to working life across studied population groups, aged 25-64, representing different ethnic backgrounds, genders and education levels. We employed an intercategorical intersectionality approach that uses categories to make visible which differences carry significance and how multiple simultaneous disadvantages intersect to produce inequities in full- and part-time employment outcomes. Analysis weights were applied in the analyses. Results Labor market outcomes showed wide variation across genders, ethnic backgrounds and education levels both within and between studied groups. Highly educated Estonian women had the highest rate of full-time employment 73% (95% CI [59.3, 83.1]), while highly educated women from African countries (excl. North Africa) and North Africa and Middle East lagged behind all migrant groups, with full-time employment around 42% and 34 % (95% CI [23.3, 63] and [20.6, 50.2], respectively). Low educated Estonians had the highest full-time employment rate, 69% (95% CI [61.5, 75.8]), exceeding that of general population, 55% (95% CI [53.2, 56.5]). Conclusions The results suggest that intersectionality of ethnicity, gender and education level have impacts on labor market participation. The most marginalized groups are disproportionately affected by inequities and exclusionary practices in the Finnish labor market. Key messages Distinct employment gaps between population groups demonstrate how multiply disadvantaged groups face multiple barriers in working life. To improve health equity, solutions are needed to remove structural barriers to employment that unfairly disadvantage certain groups of people.

Gendered Experiences of Appearance-related Perks and Penalties in Finnish Labor Markets

Physical appearance is generally associated with considerable labor-market sanctions, and appearances are thought to be of particular importance in the feminine service sector. However, little is known about workers’ experiences of appearance-based perks and penalties in Nordic labor markets. Drawing on literature on aesthetic capital and labor, this study aims to fill this research gap. The study uses a nationally representative survey (N = 1600) fielded in Finland and multinomial regression to determine whether subjective experiences of appearance-related perks and penalties are gendered, dependent on the field of work or daily work on appearances. Our main finding is that while both men and women experience looks-based perks and penalties, men are more likely to have experienced appearance having a say in salary negotiations. Our results shed light on the gendered logics of aesthetic capital and labor, and question economic understandings of beauty work as a pathway to labor market success for women

From Temporary Migrants to National Inclusion?

This article explores ways in which textbook content can reflect national identity over time via a case study of Swedish textbooks. To this end, it analyzes and contextualizes descriptions of Finnish labor migrants in Sweden in seventy-four compulsory school textbooks. The Finnish labor group emigrated from Finland to Sweden mainly from the 1950s to the 1980s. Initially, the Swedish authorities saw them as temporary laborers, but as time went by, the authorities had to realize that they had become permanent residents. In 2000, Finns were defined as an official national minority, “Sweden-Finns,” and their status changed. This article examines representations of Finnish labor migrants in Swedish history, geography and social science textbooks published between 1954 and 2016, tracing their journey from temporary laborers to a permanent national minority.

Technological Development and the Labour Market: How Susceptible Are Jobs to Automation in Hungary in the International Comparison?

In our study, we analyse data from the Hungarian Microcensus (2016) in order to map the proportion of Hungarian jobs threatened by the spread of automation. In doing so, we use the internationally well-known methodology of Carl Benedict Frey and Michael A. Osborne who estimated the probability of computerization for 702 occupations. The analysis was then repeated by Panarinen and Rouvinen for the Finnish labour market by converting the probabilities defined for the US occupational statistics to the European International Standard Classification of Occupations. Similar calculations were conducted for the Swedish and Norwegian labour markets. According to our results, almost every second Hungarian employee (44%) works in a job that is threatened by the development of digital technologies. The same ratio is 47% in the US and 53% in Sweden, while it is much lower in Finland (35%) and Norway (33%). It is especially alarming that 13% of the Hungarian workforce (i.e., almost 600,000 employees) works in an occupation where the probability of computerization is above 95%, while the number of those working in occupations where the same ratio is above 90% exceeds one million (i.e., 25% of the total Hungarian labour force). Diving deeper into the analysis, we can state that those with higher educational qualifications are more likely to work in an occupation that is more protected against computerization. Overall, there are no significant differences in the probability of computerization by gender; however, women are over-represented in the most endangered occupations.

CONCEPT AND LEGAL REGULATION OF NIGHT WORK IN UKRAINE AND SCANDINAVIAN COUNTRIES

This article is devoted to comparative legal analysis of night work in Ukraine, Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Finland, and Sweden. International Labor Organisation Convention concerning night work No 171 has not been ratified by Ukraine and any of the countries of Scandinavian legal model, and therefore, labor legislation of these countries does not comply with international legal standards. The only exception is Denmark, where provisions of Directive 2003/88/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 4 November 2003 concerning certain aspects of the organisation of working time were partially implemented. The only exception is Denmark, where provisions of Directive 2003/88/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 4 November 2003 concerning certain aspects of the organisation of working time were partially implemented. Denmark implemeted provision concerning night workers’ right to free medical examination: before the appointment of an employee to regular night shifts; periodically; and in case of health problems caused by factors relating to night work. The author determines that only Finnish labor law contains a detailed and specific list of situations where night work can be used. Ukraine and Sweden are the only countries from the list of examined countries, where any night work of young workers is prohibited, which means that those provisions are, in fact, discriminatory against persons employed in the field of culture, arts, sports or advertising, as well as those who undergo training practice under the guidance of adult. Unlike legislation of Scandinavian countries where working in night hours can be compensated by providing employees additional rest periods, Labor Code of Ukraine provides only one form of compensation in form of increased wages. It is concluded that Article 175 of the Labor Code of Ukraine is discriminatory against women and contradicts Article 24 of the Constitution of Ukraine. The legislation of the Scandinavian countries does not contain any restrictions on the night work of women, as workers of any gender can work in night time only with their voluntary consent. However, in Ukraine, only persons with disabilities can be involved in night work with voluntary consent.