Young and educated Finns, for whom Paris, London or Berlin may be as likely a hometown as Helsinki or Rovaniemi, are one of the main migrant groups leaving Finland. The doctoral dissertation of Saara Koikkalainen concluded that highly skilled Finns do not face insurmountable barriers when looking for work in other EU countries. Finding a job that matches one’s skills and education may yet require adaptation, perseverance, and sometimes even choosing to look for work in a totally different field.
The dissertation of M.Soc.Sci. Saara Koikkalainen focuses on the labour market experiences of highly skilled Finns who have moved abroad to other European Union countries. She examined, for example, the kinds of skills that migrants need when looking for work. According to the dissertation highly skilled Finns have been rather successful in their new home countries. A majority of the participants of the study have found work easily and thought the move abroad was a beneficial decision for their career.
Having good language skills in several languages was an asset when looking for work abroad. Being Finnish and Scandinavian was generally also seen as something positive, especially when applying for a job in a multinational company or an international organization that aims at recruiting workers with a different skills and backgrounds. Some of the migrants had found a competitive advantage from belonging to a small migrant group that has skills in rare languages, Finnish and Swedish.
Seeking adventures abroad
Many of the participants of the study saw the move abroad as an experiment that is motivated by different reasons related to lifestyle and personal growth and not only as a decision related to career development goals or the possibility of earning a higher salary.
“Higher salaries or lower taxation levels are not the only factors that attract highly skilled professionals from Finland. For only a few is one’s career the only reason for migration, usually also other push factors are required”, Saara Koikkalainen explains.
Yet the career progress of the Finns who took part in the study has been favorable. 70 percent of those who took part in the study estimated that they get a better salary than in Finland and 79 percent that they are in a job that is a good match for their education and previous work experience.
Are skills from Finland recognized abroad?
The theoretical interest of the study focused on how the skills and knowledge, i.e. cultural capital, of highly skilled Finns transfers across European borders. The recognition of one’s education, skills and previous work experience is especially important for highly skilled migrants who seek to continue their professional career abroad. According to Koikkalainen this transfer was rather smooth for the participants of the study. 77 percent of them estimated that the value of their degree and previous work experience is correctly recognized in the labor markets of the destination country. Only 11 percent stated that they had at some point faced discrimination when living in their current home country.
Nearly four hundred expatriate Finns from 12 European Union countries took part in the Working in Europe study conducted by Saara Koikkalainen. A typical participant of the study was a 32-year old female, who lived in London with her foreign partner. This average participant had moved abroad in 2007 after completing a university degree in Finland.
The participants of the study were thus a good match to the picture given by migration statistics. A typical migrant leaving Finland nowadays is a young woman aged between 15–34 years. To date during Finland’s membership of the EU (1995–2012) the share of this age cohort has been around forty percent of all Finnish citizens who have migrated to other EU countries. Around a third of those leaving Finland have completed a higher education degree.
Information on the Public Examination of the Dissertation:
The public examination of the doctoral dissertation of Saara Koikkalainen
Making it Abroad: Experiences of Highly Skilled Finns in the European Union Labour Markets is arranged at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Lapland on the 7th of December 2013 at 12 noon. The public opponent is Professor Adrian Favell from Sciences P.O., Paris, France and the custos is Professor Asko Suikkanen from the University of Lapland. The public examination is arranged in the lecture hall 3 (University of Lapland main building, address Yliopistonkatu 8, Rovaniemi). Welcome!
Information on the doctoral candidate:
Saara Koikkalainen (born in 1971 in Joensuu, Finland) completed her senior secondary school diploma at the Joensuun lyseon lukio in 1990 and the Master of Social Sciences degree at the University of Tampere in 1997. She has worked in a non-governmental development co-operation organisation in Uganda and Helsinki and since 2002 as education planner, international coordinator and researcher at the University of Lapland.
Further information:
Saara Koikkalainen, saara.koikkalainen (at) ulapland.fi, tel. +358 45 112 8670
Press copies of the doctoral dissertation are available from the Lapland University Press, tel. +358 40 821 4242, publications (at) ulapland.fi
Publication data:
Saara Koikkalainen:
Making it Abroad: Experiences of Highly Skilled Finns in the European Union Labour Markets. Acta Universitatis Lapponiensis 267. Lapland Univerisity Press (Lapin yliopistokustannus): Rovaniemi 2013. ISBN 978-952-484-682-0. ISSN 0788-7604.
Sales:
Academic and Art Bookshop Tila (University of Lapland Library, Yliopistonkatu 8, Rovaniemi), p. +358 40 821 4242, publications (at) ulapland.fi, online orders:
www.ulapland.fi/lup
ULapland / Communications / TN