Migration Institute of Finland

Purpose This study aims to examine the role of absence of family on the education outcomes, labor market position and mental health of unaccompanied refugee minors (URMs) in Finland. Design/methodology/approach The authors used Finnish register data covering 1991–2015 from a Nordic study titled Coming of Age in Exile that studied how socio-economic and health inequities develop during the formative years in young refugees (in Finland born between 1976 and 1999). From this data the authors identified 1,361 unaccompanied URMs born before 1997 who settled in Finland before 2010 and whom they followed until 2015. The comparison groups were accompanied refugee-origin minors (n = 10,264) and URMs whose parents immigrated later (n = 233). The methods were descriptive statistics and logistic regression analysis. Findings Accompanied refugee-origin youth completed more education and were more often employedthan URMs who lived in Finland without their families. This was mainly connected to their early migration age and living with their parents. URMs without a parent had the worst mental health outcomes: they had higher odds of using psychiatric care, had more mood and anxiety diagnoses and were prescribed antidepressants, anxiolytics or sedatives more often. Research limitations/implications One limitation of this study is that the authors do not know exactly how representative the register data on URMs is, as there are no means to validate it. They were able to obtain information on 1,594 URMs, comprising 36.2 % of the approximately 4,400 URMs who arrived in Finland between 1991 and 2010, by using other sources. Since demographic, socioeconomic and health information on URMs appears in national registers, they must have been granted residence permits in Finland. In addition, the subjective experiences of URMs who settled in Finland were missing in this register study. Practical implications The negative impact of family separation on children’s wellbeing stress the importance of family and that transnational family connections should be acknowledged in social work with URMs (Seidel et al., 2022). In addition to revisiting family reunification policies in Finland and elsewhere, family-based foster care could support the wellbeing of unaccompanied refugee minors (Kauhanen et al., 2022; Kuusisto-Arponen, 2016). Social implications In the absence of family, the formation of family-like relationships (Tiilikainen et al., 2023) could become an important foundation for wellbeing of URMs. Living with one’s family markedly improves the wellbeing of URMs and should be considered in migration policies that deal with family reunification. Originality/value There are few register-based studies of URMs. Living without family when settling into a new country as a teenager may cause a deterioration in the mental health of URMs, which in turn may lower their study skills and ability to work. Living with one’s family markedly improves the wellbeing of URMs and should be considered in migration policies that deal with family reunification

In this chapter, we focus on public debates on forced migrants in Finland by analyzing editorials of the largest Finnish national newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat, that were published between 1981 and 2004. During these years Finland implemented the first Aliens Act (1983), amended it and replaced it with a new law in 1991 and 2004 as a result of the rapid internationalization of Finland. We analyze the editorials with the public justifications analysis method. We argue that identifying public claims and justifications related to forced migration can deepen our understanding on dynamics of contestation around the topic in Finnish public discourse. We show in the chapter that the politization and securitization of the issues related to forced migration did not arrive in Finland with the larger amount of asylum seekers after 2015 but can be traced back historically.

This book analyses young people's societal participation as a central dimension of their well-being and as vitally important to secure the sustainable future of humankind and the whole eco-social system. It develops a theoretical framework for analysing youth participation holistically, embedded in its everyday context, and as a relational phenomenon, underpinned by universal human needs. It introduces innovative methodological approaches to study youth engagements in society. This book will appeal to scholars and students of youth studies, sociology, sustainable development, youth participation and education. It also offers new knowledge and theoretical readings for policy experts on youth and sustainable development, as well as for NGOs working with youth.

This paper focuses on how local council members consider public-public contractual spatial planning practices. Our approach addresses concerns over the depoliticisation of planning processes within a neoliberal governmentality. Our findings from three Nordic countries show that some of the council members accept being sidelined from contractual processes. Local council members may thus become complicit political subjects who foster depoliticisation through their own actions. We argue that council members’ interpretations concerning contractual practices give direction, not only to future planning practice, but also to societal understanding of the idea of the political in spatial planning.

Rural–urban migration patterns in Finland, Japan, and South Korea have been relatively one-sided since at least the 1950s. Outmigration to large cities, especially to the capital regions of Helsinki, Tokyo, and Soul, has greatly diminished rural communities and rendered their future prospects more challenging. However, the COVID-19 pandemic seems to have slowed this development, and perhaps even revered it. It now seems that there could be the potential for rural population growth. It was this interesting notion, evident in all three subject countries, that started the preparation for a joint virtual research seminar between the University of Helsinki’s Ruralia Institute, the Hirosaki University Faculty of Social Sciences, and the Humanities and Migration Institute of Finland Seinäjoki unit. In addition, to the academics from these institutions, regional officials from the city of Seinäjoki (Finland) and the Aomori Prefecture (Japan) also participated in the virtual seminar: COVID-19 and migration between rural regions and cities in Finland, Japan, and South Korea – Current research and preliminary reflections, which was held on 23 November 2021.

Saukkonen, Pasi: Suomi omaksi kodiksi. Kotouttamispolitiikka ja sen kehittämismahdollisuudet.(2020)

ABSTRACT ‘Knowledge-based’ approaches have recently made a breakthrough in urban planning. How to develop balance in knowledge-based planning between abstract and scientific knowledge, on the one hand, and ‘local knowledge’ on the other hand has been long debated. To this debate, we add a form of knowledge with potential for sustainable urban planning, i.e. ethnographic knowledge that could transmit an understanding of urban dwellers’ daily practices and values to planning organisations. Theoretical literature is the foundation of our argument, which we illustrate with a case study involving urban planners and decision-makers in the Helsinki region of Finland.

Local governments have become more important in the integration of immigrants, constituting a local turn in integration policy. However, the empirical evidence is still limited and variation between countries is presumably high. The present paper analyses the role played by Finnish local governments in the integration process, with municipal governments being highly autonomous from a general European perspective. The paper delineates the basic features of local integration policy, i.e. who does what, and thereafter it assesses the integration plans of local governments and how they justify the current policy. A closer look at Finnish integration policy, however, suggests that state administration actually has a strong role and that most resources are being directed to integration courses administered by the labour administration of the state. What remains for the local governments is to foresee that their services are suitable for immigrants, too. There is an asymmetry between local governments, though, as immigrants mostly live in larger cities, and half of them in the capital city area. While local governments are obliged to assess their integration policies, such assessments mostly deal with outputs and the feedback of service users. In sum, only a weak local turn seems to be emerging in Finland.

Book review of Transnational return and social change: hierarchies, identities and ideas (London: Anthem Press, 2019) by Remus Gabriel Anghel, Margit Fauser & Paolo Boccagni.