In our study we wanted to find out some facts about the emigration to other countries from Finland in the late 20th century.

FINNISH EMIGRATION IN THE 1980S AND 1990S

In the 1980s Finland turned from emigration to immigration. The population who left the country were 1,5 - 2 times less than during the earlier decades after the wars. At the beginning of the 1990s and its economical depression, emigration still kept on declining.

On the whole, women are more eager to leave their country, men on the other hand are more eager to come back.

If we think about the age of emigrants, we find out that 15- to 24-year-old people don’t move out of the country that much. But people over the age of 24 want and are able to move because they have finished their education and have better chances of finding a good job abroad. After the year 1994 when the emigration started growing again also younger people started to move out of the country more.

There are big differences in the level of education as far as different target countries are concerned. The ones who have moved to Africa or Asia have been the most highly educated. They work in these countries as experts, for example in the field of technology.

Thinking of the European countries the differences have been very big. Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland attract well-educated people whereas Sweden, Estonia, Greece, Spain and Canada in northern America offer possibilities also to less educated people.

MOTIVES OF MIGRATION

There isn’t any recent statistical information about the reasons or motives for emigration. The latest wideranging empirical study about those who moved out of the country was made in the 1980s.

We can notice that in that time getting married or some other matters that involved personal relationships were the most important individual motive for a person to leave his/her country.

Almost half of the women moved out because of that reason. Men on the other hand emigrated for a greater variety of reasons such as longer work projects abroad. A new phenomenon is health-related emigration. Especially people who have retired from working life have moved to countries like Spain, where living is cheaper and the climate is friendlier than in Finland.

Studying, practical training for the future working life and some other personal issues were also mentioned as primary reasons for moving abroad. Desire for experiment and adventure and need for a change were often mentioned as additional reasons for emigrating. So was the hope of getting economical benefits.

The emigration numbers have stayed quite the same during both the 80s and the 90s, there has not been any major ‘rush’ out of the country.