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Abstract
This article contributes to debates about the long-term development of migration dynamics. The argument is based on a study of the transnational dynamics of the migration flows between Finland and Sweden. The two countries provide a good case for studying the long-term development of migration patterns, since there has been a full freedom of movement and the migration patterns are well documented. The article argues that the postwar labor migration from Finland to Sweden created a transnational social space that still today facilitates migration between the two countries. Although Finnish citizens dominate the migration flows in both directions, the number of Swedish migrants has steadily increased. This new pattern can be explained by the development of the transnational social space involving an increasing number of mixed families.
Notes
1. There is an old Swedish-speaking minority in Finland. In Helsinki, 6% of the population (35.000 people) indicate Swedish as their native language (Statistics Finland Citation2011a). Yet, there is an immediately recognisable difference in the accent between the Swedish spoken in Finland and in Sweden. The statistics of mixed families (including Finnish and Swedish citizens) show that the respective numbers of Swedish citizens who have a Finnish-speaking and a Swedish-speaking Finnish partner is about equal (Statistics Finland Citation2011b). The sample of interviewees in this study reflects this equal division of family types. The social integration (and non-integration) of the Swedish citizens into the well-established community of Swedish-speaking Finns is the topic of separate publications of this research project.
2. The author would like to acknowledge the valuable work made by research assistant Sabina Fortelius with the interviews, transcription and coding.
3. Since short-term migrants (people who stay less than a year) are not officially recorded, the actual number of Finnish immigrants might be up to 800.000 in the period 1945–1992, as estimated by Reinans (Citation1996).
4. It is only among the Swedish-speaking areas in western Finland and on the Åland Islands – where there always have been close contacts with Sweden – that small-scale labor migration to Sweden continues to exist (Hedberg Citation2004, Citation2009; Hedberg and Kepsu Citation2008). In these particular geographical areas there has for many generations existed a ‘culture of migration’ (cf. Faist Citation2000, 159), which creates a more sustained migration pattern than in other areas of Finland.
5. Dual Finnish and Swedish citizenship is not recorded as such in the population registers in Finland and Sweden. However, these two registers count people with dual citizenship differently and the difference between the figures indicate that people with double Finnish and Swedish citizenship (i.e. people who presumably can be regarded as Finnish returnees) constitute 14% of the Swedish citizens that moved from Sweden to Finland in the period 2001–2010 (Statistics Sweden Citation2011; Statistics Finland Citation2011b).
6. A child acquires Finnish citizenship by birth if the mother, or (with some limitations) the father is a Finnish citizen. Citizens who have never lived permanently in Finland might lose their citizenship when they reach the age of 22. In the case of Finnish citizens who have lived at least seven years in the Nordic countries before the age of 22, a loss of citizenship can only be granted by Finnish authorities after the person in question has made a well-motivated application (Finnish Nationality Act (359/2003) 34§ and 35§).