Geographic Ancestry and Cause-specific Mortality in a National Population

There are marked differentials in mortality risks across regions in Finland. No exhaustive explanation to this variation has been provided, however. The aim of this paper is to analyse how geographic ancestry, as proxied by persons’ birth region and population group, interrelates with cause-specific mortality risks. Focusing on people aged between their mid-thirties and late-forties, we use longitudinal population register data that offer opportunities to account for variables that represent both persons’ social background and their own social status at young adult age. Results of Cox proportional hazard models say that these variables have substantial effects on mortality of different causes, but only a marginal impact on the variation in death rates by birth region and population group. The geographic mortality pattern is found to be specifically prominent for causes of death that are fairly unrelated to persons’ lifestyles. Our findings suggest that genetic predisposal as expressed in terms of geographic ancestry might play a relevant role in understanding mortality variation within the population of Finland.     

Using Private Social Care Services in Finland: Free or Forced Choices for Older People?

ABSTRACT

Use of private social care services among older people is increasing in Finland. This study aims to understand why older people choose private care in a comprehensive tax-subsidized social care system and examines whether people choose private service as a free choice or a forced choice as well as what factors contribute toward making these choices. Data for this study (N = 1,436) were gathered in 2010 from people aged 75 and above living independently at home in two Finnish cities: Tampere and Jyväskylä. Data were analyzed with several quantitative tests: chi-squared tests, multinomial regression analysis, and qualitative content analysis (for the open-ended responses from the survey questionnaire). Findings reveal that people chose private services mostly because of the effortlessness involved in its use and of the need for additional services that are unavailable through municipality; for example, cleaning. Majority of the respondents performed a free choice to use private services. People who lived in a city center with a higher level of income and who needed more services were more likely to be constrained toward using private support. Major concern, due to diminishing public service provision, is about service accessibility of economically disadvantaged groups; therefore, more research is required to understand the effects of the growing care market in Finland.     

Lone mothers and the puzzles of daily life: do care regimes really matter?

Kröger T. Lone mothers and the puzzles of daily life: do care regimes really matter? Int J Soc Welfare 2010: 19: 390–401 © 2009 The Author, Journal compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare. This article studies childcare patterns and day‐to‐day strategies of 111 working lone mothers from Finland, France, Italy, Portugal and the UK, and asks whether their arrangements are prescribed by care regimes. Lone mothers' arrangements are grouped into five based on the availability and use of different formal and informal childcare resources. The article argues that, even though lone mothers have a more favourable starting point in Finland and France compared with Britain, Italy and Portugal where formal childcare coverage is patchier, childcare arrangements are not very dissimilar within different care regimes. Instead, similarities across care regimes are highlighted. Formal provisions have their limitations in all the countries studied and in all cases significant expectations are placed on informal childcare. The availability of informal childcare cannot, however, be taken for granted in any country, and working lone mothers whose informal and formal resources do not adequately meet their childcare needs were located in every care regime, facing care poverty.     

NARRATION AND RITUAL FORMATION OF DIASPORIC IDENTITY: THE CASE OF SECOND GENERATION KARELIAN EVACUEES

The article is based on a case study of second generation Karelian migrants, whose parents had to move to other parts of Finland from the region of Karelia that was ceded to the Soviet Union at the end of World War II. The article poses the question, how long-lived diasporic identities are, and what are the conditions that affect assimilation or maintenance of a diasporic identity. In the Karelian migrants' case, already the first generation was quite successful in integrating with the rest of the Finnish society, and with the second generation, the integration has been practically complete, largely because of a short cultural distance between the evacuees and other Finns. A recent resurgence of interest in their roots by Karelian evacuees or their family members is primarily due to end of the Cold War and the possibility to freely and openly visit Karelia. Visiting Karelia has a ritual-like function for them. To that concrete, bodily experience of going there they can attach the abstract idea that in some ways they are Karelians and thus strengthen the emotional attachment to their roots. In that sense, visiting Karelia can also be described as a pilgrimage.     

Moral panic,moral regulation and essentialization of identities: Discursive struggle over unethical business practices in the Finnish national media

The study sheds light on the language of moral panic and moral regulation in the Finnish news media over a 9-year period on the subject of cartels and cartel agreements. What makes the case particularly interesting is that the object of the most explicit moral panic was the introduction of new laws (leniency programmes) designed to regulate illegal cartel behaviour. The main argument is that the construction of both moral regulation and moral panic in news media takes place through essentializing discursive claims that contribute to national identity construction. The study contributes to current literature on moral panics as ideologico-discursive phenomena and throws some light on the power-laden discursive processes that work to reconstruct, essentialize and stabilize identities. In addition, there are some suggestions as to why some moral panics fail to develop.     

Managing Work and Care: A Difficult Challenge for Immigrant Families

This paper explores the strategies used by immigrant families to reconcile work and care for young children in Finland, France, Italy and Portugal. Drawing upon interviews with couples or lone parents who have children below age ten, it shows that immigrant families rely on a diversity of work/care strategies. These strategies include extensive delegation of care (mostly to formal or non‐familial informal care), negotiation of care within the nuclear family (both partners sharing the care responsibilities as well as older child care), mother‐centredness (mothers cutting back on working hours), child negligence (leaving children alone) and the superimposition of care upon work (taking children to work). Almost all immigrant families, but especially first‐generation ones, suffer from the absence of close kin networks to support childcare, strong pressure to work and from work (long or atypical hours) and various integration problems such as social isolation, lack of information on services, and problems with housing. However, our findings show that migration patterns, among other factors, have a significant impact on work/care strategies. Highly qualified “professional migration” is more associated with extensive paid delegation (often private and high‐cost), “marriage migration” with mother‐centredness, and “unskilled worker migration” with low‐cost solutions supplemented by workplace care, older child care and negligence. First‐generation unskilled worker migrant families are more exposed to occupational and residential segregation, atypical working hours, low earnings and difficulties in managing work and care for young children. Findings point to the still weak regulatory function of the different welfare states in the protection of these families.     

荷兰与芬兰教育体系及特点比较

荷兰与芬兰的教育都很发达,虽然同属西方教育模式,但各自的体系和特点有所不同,荷兰教育在一定程度上代表了西欧的教育模式,芬兰则代表了北欧,比较二者的异同能使我们更清楚的看到西方发达国家的教育发展状况,从而为我国的教育改革提供可以借鉴的经验。