Assessing the level of immigrant integration in Finland

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Title: Assessing the level of immigrant integration in Finland Version: Final draft

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Kunwar, J. (2020). Assessing the level of immigrant integration in Finland. In Przytuła S. &

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ganizational and Individual Perspectives Vol. 25, 197 - 215. (Advanced Series in Manage-

ment Vol. 25). Emerald Publishing Limited.

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IMMIGRANT INTEGRATION IN FINLAND

Jagat Kunwar

ABSTRACT

The continuedflow of immigrants in various countries, including Finland, has made it necessary to assess their level of integration for both academic and policy reasons. Despite the proliferation of multiple immigration integration indices, none of them are irreproachable. The indicators of integration levels are context-dependent. The index should also be both standardized to facil- itate cross-comparative research andflexible to be relevant across multiple contexts. The choice of the unit of analysis also alters the definition of integration.

The main purpose of this study is to identify the indicators of immigration integration levels at the individual level in the Finnish context. Thereafter, a combined index identifying six types of integration measures–psychological, linguistic, economic, political, social and navigational– based on the Immi- gration Policy Lab (IPL) Integration Index, is administered to foreigners in Finland (N5 86). The sample consists of young (20–40), highly educated individuals, from 36 different countries who have migrated to Finland pre- dominantly for family and study purposes.

The results show that immigrants who have stayed longer in Finland and are highly educated display higher levels of integration. Immigrants who are naturalized citizens display higher levels of integration across all dimensions.

IPL Integration Index performs in the expected direction and can be applied across Finland in a larger random sample, after slight modiﬁcations, to increase generalizability. The study further suggests that Finnish immigration integration schemes focus excessively on macrolevel policies aiming at

ISSN: 1877-6361/doi:10.1108/S1877-636120200000025012 197

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linguistic, economic and navigational integration of new immigrants at the cost of individual psychosocial integration of well-established immigrants.

Keywords: Immigration; integration; immigration index; economic integration; social integration; cultural integration

INTRODUCTION

Finland is one of the Western European nations where the inflow of migrants has started relatively only recently (OECD, 2018; Saukkonen, 2016). Consid- ering the inflows of foreign population into OECD countries and Russia, Finland ranks 38 out of 44 countries in the data available from OECD Inter- national Migration Database. Even while considering only the EU countries, the inflow of foreign population in Finland is quite low in absolute numbers (OECD, 2019; Fig. 1).

However, there is no doubt that the proportion of persons with foreign background in Finland is increasing. The number of persons with foreign background in the year 1990, when the ﬁrst statistics is available, was 37,618, which was 0.75% of the total population. It has gradually risen to 402,619 in 2018, which is 7.30% of the total population. In terms of the major regions from where immigrants arrive in Finland, they are Europe, Asia, Africa, America and Oceania, in the descending order (Statistics Finland, 2020; Fig. 2). The top 10 countries in terms of immigration to Finland are Estonia, Iraq, Russian

0.0 500.0 1 000.0 1 500.0 2 000.0 2 500.0

2 0 0 6 2 0 0 8 2 0 1 0 2 0 1 2 2 0 1 4 2 0 1 6 2 0 1 8

Germany United Kingdom Spain

France Italy Finland

Fig. 1. Inﬂows of Foreign Population in Selected European Countries Compared to Finland, 2006–2018, Number in Thousands.Source:OECD (2019).

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0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 12000 14000 16000

1 9 8 9 1 9 9 4 1 9 9 9 2 0 0 4 2 0 0 9 2 0 1 4 2 0 1 9

EUROPE ASIA AFRICA AMERICA OCEANIA

Fig. 2. Number of Immigrants to Finland by Major Regions, 1990–2018.

Source:Statistics Finland (2020).

0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000

1989 1994 1999 2004 2009 2014 2019

Estonia Iraq

Russian Federa on India

China Ukraine

Syrian Arab Republic Afghanistan Sweden Viet Nam

Fig. 3. Number of Immigrants to Finland by Nationality of Immigrants, 1990–2018.Source:Statistics Finland (2020).

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Federation, India, China, Ukraine, Syrian Arab Republic, Afghanistan, Vietnam and Sweden, in the descending order (Fig. 3).

The varieties of regions and the recent nature of influx of immigrants bring with it the conundrum of designing effective but individually tailored integration programmes (OECD, 2018). Recognizing such a need, the first national Inte- gration Act was promulgated in Finland already in 1999 (Saukkonen, 2016) and revised as Act on the Promotion of Immigrant Integration (1386/2010) in 2010 (Ministry of Employment and the Economy, 2020). Simultaneously, there has been parallel attempts to evaluate the effectiveness of the integration schemes designed for immigrants in both academic and policy research. The overall assessments have been both positive and negative. Part of such disparities in assessment is definitely due to the differences in the nature of indicators of integration considered and prioritized. This study attempts to further this discussion by considering various measures of immigrant integration in the Finnish context.

THE FINNISH EXPERIENCE WITH IMMIGRANT INTEGRATION

In the Finnish context,‘immigrant’means‘a person who has moved to Finland, who resides in the country with a permit issued for purposes other than tourism or similar residence of short duration, whose right of residence has been regis- tered or who has been issued with a residence card’(Ministry of Employment and the Economy, 2020). There is no unanimity in the academic literature regarding the concept of‘integration’(Caselli, 2015; see Chapter 3). The Finnish government deﬁnes‘integration’as ‘interactive development involving immigrants and society at large, the aim of which is to provide immigrants with the knowledge and skills required in society and working life and to provide them with support, so that they can maintain their culture and language’(Ministry of Employment and the Economy, 2020). Hence, the Finnish deﬁnition of integration goes beyond the assimilationist paradigm, where the immigrants dissolve their identity in the host country. It is also against creating ghettos where the immigrant contact is reduced to a bare minimum with the goal to preserve the so-called

‘cultural autonomy’ of the immigrants. It strongly emphasizes the two-way encounters between the immigrants and the host country nationals. Hence, Finnish integration policy can be considered as a ‘multiculturalist policy’ (Saukkonen, 2016).

In the academic literature, the choice of the unit of analysis also alters the deﬁnition of the concept of integration. That is, the level of integration can be considered at the individual immigrant level or at the level of the group (nationality, ethnicity, etc.) (Caselli, 2015). For instance, some researchers in the Finnish context consider integration at the level of nationalities such as Somalis (Kananen & Sotkasiira, 2015), diaspora networks (Elo & Juntunen, 2015) or ethnicities (Kalinitchev, 2015). In this article, the unit of analysis considered is at the individual level while also acknowledging other multiple facets of immigrant

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identities such as their ethnicities, nationalities and belongingness to different diaspora networks.

The public authorities in Finland have recognized the need for integration of immigrants when thefirst waves of immigrants arrived in Finland by promul- gating the National Integration Act already in 1999 (Saukkonen, 2016). The goal of the Finnish official policies, as elaborated in the revised Act on the Promotion of Immigrant Integration (1386/2010), is to support and promote integration so that immigrants play active role in the Finnish society (Ministry of Employment and the Economy, 2020). The revised national Integration Act expands the scope of integration from only refugees and unemployed immigrants considered earlier to any other foreign nationals who may find utility in such arrangements (Saukkonen, 2016).

Integration services in Finland are based on three major steps: conducting initial assessment, drawing up integration plan and implementing integration training (OECD, 2018). The integration policy is initiated when the Employment and Economic Development Ofﬁce (TE Ofﬁce) carries out the initial assessment with the immigrant, as soon as possible, after their arrival. The process includes, among others, examination of former education, training and work experience of the immigrant. After an initial assessment, an integration plan is normally drawn up for the immigrant. This integration plan is a mutual agreement on integration training that includes, among others, language courses, training enhancing eligibility in the labour market and further trainings to improve newcomers’

social, cultural and life management skills in the Finnish society (Saukkonen, 2016).

Parallel to such developments, there has been several attempts to judge the effectiveness of the integration plan designed for immigrants, particularly in view of the integration in the labour market (Heikkilä, 2017; Ala-Kauhaluoma et al., 2018). The main aim of the Finnish integration policy is to get immigrants to enter the labour market quickly (Saukkonen, 2016). According to the official statistics, the percentage of foreign workforce in the total workforce has increased from 2.53% in January 2009 to 4.74% in December 2019 (Statistics Finland, 2020; Fig. 4). However, there is a huge difference in percentage of unemployed jobseekers of the workforce as compared to the percentage of foreign unemployed jobseekers of the foreign workforce. For example, the monthly statistics of the labour market indicates that in December 2019, while the percentage of unemployed jobseekers of the workforce was 9.8%, comparatively, the percentage of foreign unemployed jobseekers of the foreign workforce was 22.8% (Official Statistics of Finland (OSF), 2020; Figs. 4 and 5).

In comparison to other OECD countries, the employment rate in Finland is lower among the foreign-born population (OECD, 2018; OECD, 2019). Several previous researches conducted by Finnish government apparatus clearly point out to the existence of discrimination in the Finnish labour market towards immigrants (Ministry of Employment and the Economy Finland, 2012). The recent spikes in asylum seekers coupled with the tight ﬁscal constraints have decreased the efﬁciency of the integration system in light of the constantly Q1

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increasing demand for its services. The most serious concern has also been that while the initial assessment, the integration plan and integration training have been working well, the implementation and follow-ups of such integration plan at the individual level is somewhat lacking (OECD, 2018).

0.00%

0.50%

1.00%

1.50%

2.00%

2.50%

3.00%

3.50%

4.00%

4.50%

5.00%

2009M01 2010M04 2011M07 2012M10 2014M01 2015M04 2016M07 2017M10 2019M01

Fig. 4. Foreign Workforce as the Percentage of Total Workforce, 2009–2019.

Source:Ofﬁcial Statistics of Finland (OSF) (2020).

Fig. 5. Comparison of Percentage of Foreign Unemployed Jobseekers and Unemployed Jobseekers as Part of the Workforce, 2009–2019.Source:Ofﬁcial

Statistics of Finland (OSF) (2020).

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Altogether, there is some degree of consent that Finnish integration policy has achieved less in practice than ofﬁcially proclaimed. There has been recent rise in Finnish nationalist populism movements and attitudes towards multiculturalism have been negative if not outright violent. Certain groups such as Russians and Somalians have to face more hostility towards them in the Finnish society (Saukkonen, 2016). The survey on work and well-being among persons of foreign origin (UTH survey) carried out by Statistics Finland and the National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) also acknowledge several work and well-being related issues that individuals of foreign origin face in the Finnish society (Nieminen, Sutela, & Hannula, 2015).

Due to sharp spikes in the rate of asylum application from the year 2015 onwards, when Finland received 32,476 asylum applications in a single year (Ofﬁcial Statistics of Finland (OSF), 2020), the challenges of immigrant integration have become increasingly important. Careful reconsideration of integration policy design and implementation is frequently on the agenda. Increasingly the policy debates have also veered towards long-term integration of established immigrants rather than focussing only on the new arrivals. This is particularly important as long-term skilled migrants are still struggling to integrate themselves in the Finnish society and the labour market. This will become more signiﬁcant taking into consideration the recent trends of stagnating economic growth and ageing population in Finland especially in the rural areas (OECD, 2018).

THE DIMENSIONS OF INTEGRATION AND MEASUREMENT

In order to design and gauze the effectiveness of policies driven to enhance the integration of immigrants in the host country–particularly when the proportion of cross-board migration has been continuously increasing – the measure of integration of immigrants in the host country is of crucial concern. Due to the complex and multidimensional nature of the concept of integration, several researchers and policymakers in the past have attempted to create a synthetic index as an overview of the level of immigrant integration. Most academic studies emphasize the multidimensional aspect of integration. Several researchers measuring and assessing immigrant integration cover wide range of indicators– economic, social, cultural and political–in order to develop the synthetic index of immigrant integration (Weide, 2009; Caselli, 2015; see Chapter 3). However, due to the subjective nature of selection and the choice of indicators as proxies, no synthetic index can have objective validity (Harder et al., 2018).

In the Finnish context, the personalized immigrant integration plan focusses on‘training, job seeking and its aims, and the measures and services supporting job seeking and promoting employment’ (Ministry of Employment and the Economy, 2020). It is quite clear that the Finnish evaluation of immigrant integration schemes prioritizes labour market integration above all (Weide, 2009). This type of integration, which is perhaps the most emphasized, is referred in the academic literature as‘economic integration’(Harder et al., 2018).

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In addition to economic integration, academic studies emphasize the political dimension of integration. This is considered to be the understanding of the important political issues facing the host country and the degree to which immigrants engage in discussion and political action (Harder et al., 2018). Others (Caselli, 2015) further add indicators such as citizenship status of immigrants and their progeny, legal status and enrolment in the local registry ofﬁce as components of political integration. Still others differentiate four kinds of political integration:

identiﬁcation with the new society of residence, adoption of democratic norms and values, political rights and actual participation and representation (Weide, 2009).

The ofﬁcial measures of immigrant integration and evaluation of integration schemes in Finland emphasize political integration hardly, if ever at all.

One of the other aims of the initial personalized integration plan for an immigrant in Finland is to‘provide the immigrants with the basic language skills in Swedish or Finnish required in daily life’(Ministry of Employment and the Economy, 2020). Skills in the host country language are found to be determining factors of speed and success of immigration integration across the OECD countries. More practically, the background language of the immigrants and its difference from the host country language determines the nature of training plan and integration pathways designed for the immigrant by the host government (OECD, 2018). Language training is the central aspect of integration efforts in Finland. This is reflected in the importance given to initial tests to determine the current language abilities of the immigrant and the likely speed of Finnish language acquisition. The sufficient command of Finnish language determines other components of integration plan such as the labour market training, other basic literacy training and training on civic orientation. The‘sufficient command’of the dominant language of the host country is referred to in the academic literature as‘linguistic integration’(Harder et al., 2018).

Many synthetic indices of integration also focus on the extent of social ties and interactions with host country nationals as an indicator of‘social integration’of immigrants (Harder et al., 2018). Some scholars do not distinguish linguistic and social integration but rather refer to them collectively as ‘cultural integration’ (Caselli, 2015). Still others distinguish both of these indices from psychological component of integration. Psychologically integrated immigrants feel connected to the host country, are committed to continue their residence in the host country and do not feel isolated as an outsider in the host society (Harder et al., 2018).

Although social and psychological integration in the host society seems to be important component of immigrant integration, the Finnish immigration integration plan does not prioritize these aspects. The efforts on familiarizing the immigrants towards civic orientation and Finnish society are disguised within the language and vocational training provided to immigrants as part of the personalized immigrant integration plan. Although there are separate crisis helplines (e.g., Mieli Finland) and other supports available for psychological integration, it does not appear to be a fundamental facet of the integration schemes. Even systematic studies on well-being of people of foreign origin fundamentally miss the social and psychological components of integration (Nieminen, Sutela, &

Hannula, 2015).

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The review of past researches also reveals another additional dimension of immigrant integration called‘navigational integration’. It refers to the awareness of general conventions of the country and the ability to navigate the basic requirements in the host country (Harder et al., 2018). This component is quite central to the integration support in Finland as it is based on the provision of information. For example, the government has proactively set up information banks (infopankki) such as infoFinland.fito help migrantsfind the information they need to fulfil their service needs in their own languages. While the provision of information is the central pillar of integration schemes in Finland, the effectiveness of such efforts in everyday lives of the migrants is debatable. Both new and established immigrants are unaware of services available to support their integration in the Finnish society and need more support in accessing and uti- lizing such information (OECD, 2018).

To summarize, immigrant integration is a multidimensional concept in terms of both academic research and policymaking. Although there is no objective consensus, the six dimensions – economic, psychological, social, linguistic, navigational and political–provide comprehensive and multifaceted overview of the level of integration of immigrants in the host country. In the Finnish context, individualized immigrant integration plans emphasize economic, linguistic and navigational integration. However, there is much to be desired when it concerns the social, psychological and political forms of immigrant integration. In order to practically understand the various indicators of immigrant integrations across these six dimensions, the following section will describe a survey conducted among individuals of foreign origin in Finland.

SURVEY AMONG IMMIGRANTS IN FINLAND

The main purpose of this study is to identify the indicators of immigration integration levels at the individual level in the Finnish context and to assess the applicability of the various types of integration indices in the Finnish context. In order to determine the extent of integration of immigrants in the Finnish society and to assess the applicability of these dimensions in the Finnish context, a survey was conducted among people of foreign origin in Finland. Questionnaire items operationalized six measures of integration: Psychological Integration (PSYCHI), Linguistic Integration (LINGI), Economic Integration (ECONI), Political Inte- gration (POLI), Social Integration (SOCI) and Navigational Integration (NAVI).

In order to determine the level of PSYCHI, four Likert scale items (1–5) were included in the survey related to the immigrant’s self-perceived connection with Finland, feeling of being an outsider in Finland, willingness to continue living in Finland and the feeling of isolation from Finnish society. To determine the level of LINGI, matrix of four Likert scale items (1–5) regarding the immigrants’ ability to read, speak, write and listen Finnish language was used. The level of ECONI was determined by asking the immigrants their household’s total annual income, employment status and satisfaction and their ability to afford unexpected expenses.

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The level of POLI was determined by asking two Likert scale items (1–5) regarding immigrants’understanding of Finnish political issues and frequency of political discussions engaged in. SOCI was determined by asking the immigrants four Likert scale (1–5) items regarding sharing meal with a Finn, conversation in the last four weeks with a Finn, participation in groups and associations and Finnish membership in those groups and the favours provided to Finns. Finally, the level of NAVI was determined by asking matrix of three Likert scale items (1–5) concerning the ability of immigrants toﬁnd medical, employment and legal services. To create the ﬁnal comparable indices for all measures, the questionnaire items within a set of measure were summed up and rescaled to a range of 0–1 by using the formula (score-minimum score)/(maximum-minimum).

IPL-24 survey instrument (Harder et al., 2018) was used as a guide to identify questionnaire items for all of the measures of immigration integration except POLI and NAVI. The series of questions in the original survey included in the POLI index and NAVI index were inapplicable in the Finnish context. For both of these indices, IPL-12 (Harder et al., 2018) survey instrument was used which consisted of two applicable items each. It was decided to implement IPL-24 survey instrument for this study because it was one of the only immigrant integration index which was thoroughly checked for construct validity using both

‘contrasted groups’approach and correlation with well-established predictors of integration from the literature (Harder et al., 2018). Similarly, IPL-24 survey was developed by Immigration Policy Lab (IPL) after consulting and synthesizing more than 52 existing immigrant integration indices (Immigration Policy Lab, 2020) and could be considered quite comprehensive in its scope yet concise in application.

Some modiﬁcations were made in the Finnish context. Questions regarding employment status were modiﬁed to include the option of‘immigrant integration program’run by the Finnish ministry of employment and labour. Almost all of the questions which involved monetary amount were adjusted to consider the Finnish economy. For example, the self-reported household incomes in dollar amounts in the IPL-24 survey were converted to Euros, averaged and normalized by dividing it with the square root of the number of members in the household.

Finland’s gross median equalised household income (24,580 €) (Statistics Finland, 2020) was used as a reference category for further recoding.

Most of the demographic items included in the questionnaire were determined to reﬂect the initial assessment that Finnish government implements with incoming immigrants to determine the extent of integration measures required.

Such an initial assessment‘involves, to the extent necessary, the examination of the immigrant’s previous education, training, employment history and language skills and, if necessary, other matters inﬂuencing his/her employment prospects and integration’(Ministry of Employment and the Economy, 2020). The survey was administered through the Webropol system. The public link was made available in various Facebook groups, forums and other social networks of foreigners in Finland in the web. The data were collected for a period of 3 months during December 2019–February 2020.

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GENERAL RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

The number of immigrants who took part in the survey was 86. General description of the sample characteristics is provided in Table 1.

Overall, the sample consists of higher proportion of males (64%). The sample represents young population, as 77.9% of the sample falls within the range of 20–40 years of age. The immigrants who took part in the survey are highly educated, as 20.9% of them have already completed their high education and 74.5% of them are enrolled in various universities across Finland. Only 20.9% of the sample self-identify Christianity as their religion whereas the rest belong to other religions such as Islam (10.5%), Buddhism (9%) or Hinduism (33.7%).

Majority of the respondents have immigrated to Finland for study purposes (64%) followed by relationship reasons (31.4%) and asylum (1.2%). Only 24.4%

of the samples are naturalized citizen of Finland already. The sample represents 36 countries in total, out of which the top 10 countries represented were Nepal, Russia, Vietnam, India, Pakistan, Brazil, Bangladesh, Canada, Philippines and the United States, in the descending order. It should be noted that the sample consists of 34.9% of immigrants from Nepal which is not really representative of the Finnish population of foreign origin. However, as the purpose of the study is to assess the relevance of indicators of immigration integration from the IPL-24 index, it was not considered problematic.

One-way ANOVA was conducted to compare whether there is a signiﬁcant difference in the level of integration indices and the demographic characteristics of immigrants in Finland. There was no signiﬁcant difference in the level of different types of integration based on gender of the immigrants. The mean scores of various measures of integration according to gender of the respondents are presented in Table 2.

There was a significant difference in the level of linguistic integration based on the age group of the respondents [F(4, 81)55.59,p50.00]. Post hoc comparisons using the Tukey HSD test indicated that the mean score for linguistic integration for‘people less than 20’age group (M50.29,SD50.27) and 50–64 age group (M50.84,SD50.15) was significantly different. The mean score for linguistic integration for people from 20 to 29 (M50.30,SD50.20) and 30–39 age group (M50.49,SD50.31) was significantly different. Similarly, the mean score for linguistic integration for people from 20 to 29 age group (M5 0.30, SD50.20) and 50–64 age group (M50.84,SD50.15) was also significantly different. This reflects the fact that majority of the immigrants who are from the older age group display higher linguistic integration. This may be because they deem it necessary to learn Finnish language or have had more time to learn the language proactively. The mean scores of various integration measures according to the age group of the respondents are presented in Table 3.

The results show that there was signiﬁcant difference in the level of economic integration based on the age group of the immigrants [F(4, 81)56.57,p50.00].

Post hoc comparisons indicated that the mean score for economic integration for immigrants of‘less than 20’(M50.30,SD50.10) and 40–49 years age group (M50.65,SD50.15) was signiﬁcantly different. The mean score for economic integration for immigrants of the age group 50–64 (M50.83,SD 50.27) was

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signiﬁcantly different from immigrants belonging to the‘less than 20’age group (M50.30,SD 50.10), from 20 to 29 age group (M50.46,SD50.19) and from 30 to 39 age group (M 5 0.49, SD 5 0.21). This clearly shows that immigrants belonging to the higher age bracket are more economically integrated in the Finnish society.

Table 1. The Characteristics of the Immigrant Sample Surveyed.

Sample Characteristics (N586) Gender

Male 64.00%

Female 36.00%

Age

,20 9.30%

20–29 41.90%

30–39 36.00%

40–49 8.10%

50–64 4.70%

Highest Level of Education Completed

Some High School 1.20%

High School 20.90%

Bachelor’s Degree 53.50%

Master’s Degree 19.80%

PhD or Higher 1.20%

Trade/Vocational School 2.30%

Others 1.20%

Self-Identiﬁed Religion

Christianity 20.90%

Islam 10.50%

Buddhism 9.30%

Hinduism 33.70%

Nonreligious 25.60%

Top Five Nationalities

Nepal (NP) 34.90%

Russia (RU) 7.00%

Vietnam (VN) 5.80%

India (IN) 4.70%

Pakistan (PK) 4.70%

Main Reason for Immigration Family, Marriage, Love or Personal Relationship

31.40%

Study, Study Place 64.00%

Refugee, Seek Asylum 1.20%

Other (Specify) 3.50%

Naturalized Citizenship Status

No 75.60%

Yes 24.40%

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The mean scores of various integration measures according to the level of education of immigrants is presented in Table 4. The results show that there was a signiﬁcant difference in the level of economic integration based on the level of educational level of the immigrants [F(2, 83)57.14,p50.00]. Post hoc comparisons indicated that the mean score for economic integration for people who have completed high school or less than high school (M50.35,SD50.14) and university level education (M50.54,SD50.22) was signiﬁcantly different. This is hardly surprising as highly educated immigrants are expected to be employed well.

There was also signiﬁcant difference in the level of political integration based on the educational level of the immigrants [F(2, 83)53.59, p 50.03]. Tukey HSD test indicated that the mean score for political integration for immigrants who have completed high school or less than high school (M50.30,SD50.21) is signiﬁcantly different from those who are enrolled in vocational and trade schools (M50.46,SD 50.10). This is somewhat surprising as one can expect highly educated immigrants to be more aware of the political issues in Finland.

One reason for this result may be that immigrants are enrolled in vocational schools in Finland as a part of immigrant integration plan after initial assessment by an Employment and Economic Development Ofﬁce (Ministry of Employment and the Economy, 2020). As such, immigrants who participate in such integration schemes generally need to be aware of the policy level changes as a part of political processes in Finland and hence display higher political awareness.

The mean scores of various integration measures according to the religion of the immigrants are presented in Table 5.

Table 2. The Mean Scores of Integration Indices Respective to the Gender of the Immigrants (Statistics Finland, 2020).

Integration Indices PSYCHI LINGI ECONI POLI SOCI NAVI

Gender

Male 0.45 0.37 0.47 0.31 0.32 0.42

Female 0.53 0.46 0.51 0.41 0.38 0.44

Table 3. The Mean Scores of Integration Indices Respective to the Age Group of the Immigrants.

Age

,20 0.52 0.29 0.30 0.31 0.37 0.37

20–29 0.46 0.30 0.46 0.30 0.36 0.39

30–39 0.47 0.49 0.49 0.34 0.29 0.42

40–49 0.53 0.42 0.65 0.48 0.38 0.55

50–64 0.61 0.84 0.83 0.66 0.50 0.69

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There was a significant difference in the level of social integration based on the self-identified religion of immigrants [F(4, 81) 54.75,p5 0.00]. Post hoc comparisons show that the mean score for social integration for immigrants who are Christians (M 5 0.44, SD 5 0.24) and immigrants who identify as Hindus (M50.23,SD50.19) was significantly different. The test also showed that the mean social integration score for immigrants who are Hindu (M50.23, SD 5 0.19) in comparison to those who identify as nonreligious (M5 0.44, SD50.16) was significantly different. This shows that immigrants who follow a religion other than Christianity, which is the dominant religion in Finland, score low on social integration indices. Furthermore, immigrants who do not follow any religious practices are better integrated socially in Finland than those who identify themselves more as religious. It should be noted that the results might also reflect the biased nature of the sample as 33.7% of the immigrants surveyed identified themselves as Hindu.

There was also a signiﬁcant difference in the level of linguistic integration based on the main reasons for immigration for the respondents [F(2, 83)56.36,p 50.00]. Post hoc comparisons indicated that the mean score for linguistic integration for people immigrating for family and personal reasons (M50.53,SD5 0.34) and for studies (M 5 0.32, SD 5 0.22) was signiﬁcantly different. This could indicate that people immigrating for family reasons have already, to some degree, learnt the language from their relationships, whereas for those who are immigrating for study reasons do not necessarily have to learn Finnish as most of the degree programmes available for foreign students are provided in English. In Table 4. The Mean Scores of Integration Indices Respective to the Education Level Completed by the Immigrants.

Level of Education

High School or Lower 0.46 0.29 0.35 0.23 0.30 0.37

University Level 0.49 0.43 0.54 0.37 0.35 0.44

Vocational and Others 0.54 0.44 0.31 0.63 0.46 0.44

Table 5. The Mean Scores of Integration Indices Respective to the Religion Followed by the Immigrants.

Religion

Christianity 0.54 0.43 0.53 0.46 0.44 0.46

Islam 0.42 0.33 0.41 0.29 0.35 0.48

Buddhism 0.50 0.41 0.43 0.31 0.27 0.44

Hinduism 0.41 0.35 0.51 0.25 0.23 0.33

Non-religious 0.54 0.47 0.47 0.41 0.44 0.50

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such cases, the network of immigrants also comprises of other immigrating students who primarily communicate in English and do not need to develop their proﬁciency in Finnish. The mean scores of various integration indices according to the reason of immigration for the participants are shown in Table 6.

There was a signiﬁcant difference in the level of political integration based on the respondents’main reasons for immigration [F(2, 83)55.61,p50.01]. Post hoc comparisons indicated that the mean score for political integration for people who immigrated for family and personal reasons (M50.48,SD50.29) and for studies (M50.28,SD50.24) is signiﬁcantly different. Again, respondents immigrating for family reasons presumably are in a relationship with their Finnish partners from whom they are likely to be aware of the key political issues facing Finland.

On the other hand, the close network for people immigrating for study reasons consists of other foreign students, which perhaps does not help to increase their political awareness. Similarly, although there was a signiﬁcant difference in the level of social integration based on the respondents’main reasons for immigration [F(2, 83)53.51,p50.03], the post hoc tests did not clearly show the differing groups. This suggests that integration success and labour market outcomes in Finland vary markedly across the migrant population with respect to the reason prompting their migration decision. Previous researches indicate that refugees tend to face considerable barriers to integration (OECD, 2018).

Table 7 presents the mean scores of various integration indices for immigrants according to their duration of stay in Finland.

Table 6. The Mean Scores of Integration Indices Respective to the Reasons for Immigration.

Reasons for Immigration

Family, Marriage, Love or Personal Relationship

0.52 0.53 0.55 0.48 0.41 0.48

Study, Study Place 0.46 0.32 0.46 0.28 0.30 0.40

Refugee, Seek Asylum, Others 0.52 0.59 0.39 0.44 0.50 0.38

Table 7. The Mean Scores of Integration Indices Respective to the Duration of Stay of Immigrants.

Duration of Stay

Up to 1 year 0.35 0.14 0.49 0.38 0.26 0.28

2–4 years 0.49 0.29 0.37 0.31 0.36 0.36

5–10 years 0.44 0.38 0.49 0.33 0.32 0.43

11–15 years 0.45 0.46 0.52 0.25 0.34 0.41

More than 16 years 0.61 0.64 0.64 0.52 0.40 0.59

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There was a significant difference in the level of linguistic integration based on the duration of stay of immigrants [F(4, 81)5 5.76,p 50.00]. Post hoc comparisons show that the mean scores for linguistic integration for immigrants who have stayed up to 1 year (M50.14,SD50.16); 2–4 years (M50.29,SD50.23) and 5–10 years (M50.38,SD 50.24) were significantly different from immigrants who have stayed for more than 16 years (M50.64,SD 50.33). This is hardly surprising, as those immigrants who have stayed for longer in Finland will have the motivation and time to develop proficiency in Finnish.

There was also significant difference in the level of economic integration depending on the duration of stay of immigrants [F(4, 81)54.42,p50.00]. The mean score for economic integration for immigrants in Finland already for 2–4 years (M 50.37, SD 50.17) was significantly different from those who have already been in Finland for more than 16 years (M50.64, SD 50.22). This indicates that immigrants who have been in Finland for longer duration are better integrated in the labour market, have higher income and are generally more satisfied with their employment situation.

Additionally, there was a signiﬁcant difference in the level of navigational integration based on the duration of stay of immigrants in Finland [F(4, 81)53.24, p50.02]. Further tests indicated that the mean score for navigational integration for people who have been in Finland only for 2–4 years (M50.36,SD50.13) was signiﬁcantly different compared to those who have already been in Finland for more than 16 years (M50.59,SD50.31). This clearly shows that immigrants who have been for longer duration in Finland also know better how to navigate the institutional life in Finland.

Finally, Table 8 shows the mean scores of various integration indices depending on whether the immigrant is a naturalized citizen in Finland.

The results show that those who are already a naturalized citizen in Finland are better integrated psychologically [F(1, 84) 5 8.33,p 5 0.00], linguistically [F(1, 84)551.53,p50.00], economically [F(1, 84)514.17,p50.00], politically [F(1, 84) 510.34, p 50.00], socially [F(1, 84) 54.74, p 50.03] and navigationally [F(1, 84)519.19,p50.00]. The requirements for granting citizenship certiﬁcate in Finland include minimum of four years stay with a permanent residence card, passing of minimum intermediate level of YKI (Finnish Proﬁ- ciency Test) and checks for minimum duration and income from employment (Finnish Immigration Service, 2020). As such, it already assures that those who are more integrated in the Finnish society will be naturalized citizen of Finland.

By default, these immigrants also have voting eligibility in Finnish municipal and

Table 8. The Mean Scores of Integration Indices Respective to the Citizenship Status of the Immigrants.

Citizenship Status

No 0.45 0.30 0.44 0.29 0.32 0.37

Yes 0.59 0.71 0.63 0.51 0.43 0.60

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parliamentary elections. However, one should be circumspect as it is hard to determine from this study the direction of the causation, that is, if it is the level of integration, which improves the eligibility of citizenship status or vice versa. A longitudinal panel approach may be a better option to determine the direction of the causation between immigrant integration and citizenship status.

CONCLUSIONS

The majorﬁndings of the study indicate factors signiﬁcantly affecting the level of integration measured through various indices in Finland. The results show that the differences in linguistic integration of immigrants are explained by several factors. Those who are older, have been in Finland for a longer duration, immigrated for family reasons and are naturalized citizens of Finland are better integrated linguistically in the Finnish society. Those who are older, are educated better, have been in Finland for a longer duration and are naturalized citizens of Finland are better integrated economically in the Finnish society. Immigrants with higher level of education, who have immigrated for family reasons and who are already naturalized citizens of Finland are better integrated politically in the Finnish society. Immigrants who are nonreligious or from religion closer to Christianity and who have immigrated for family reasons are better integrated socially. Immigrants who have stayed in Finland for longer duration and are naturalized citizens of Finland are better integrated navigationally. Only the citizenship status is a better predictor of psychological integration of immigrants in the Finnish society.

The results were according to the theoretical expectations. Immigrants who have stayed longer in Finland displayed higher levels of integration as reﬂected in the higher IPL Integration Index scores for various dimensions. Immigrants who are already naturalized citizens displayed higher levels of integration across all dimensions. The levels of education of the immigrants also determined the higher levels of integration in various dimensions. It could be safely concluded that IPL Integration Index performs in the expected direction according to the predictors of integration even in the context of Finland.

What should be noted, however, is that the sample size in the study was small and convenient (N586). This is reflected in the higher proportion of individuals represented from some nationalities and it is not representative of the foreign- born population in Finland overall. Some previous studies already point out that the speed and success of integration in Finland is strongly related to the origin of the migrant (OECD, 2018). Despite such limitations, the study definitely expli- cates the utility of a large-scale survey of appropriate sample size with randomly sampled immigrants at the national level using similar methods. The study also suggests that some minor modifications need to be made to the IPL-24 survey (Harder et al., 2018; Immigration Policy Lab, 2020) before implementing the survey at a large scale in Finland. A longitudinal panel design would enable to understand the causal direction of various integration indices and the individual characteristics of immigrants.

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The most important insight of the study is the low level of psychological integration among immigrants in Finland despite long duration of their stay in Finland. This indicates that immigrants in Finland do not feel connected but often feel isolated and an outsider in the society prompting them to think about leaving the country at some point. Similarly, the study also indicates that while linguistic, economic and navigational integration are prioritized by the Finnish integration scheme, social and psychological dimensions of integration are rele- gated unimportant. Considering the lower performance on those indicators, it is important to consider those dimensions in future assessments of immigration integration programmes. This is particularly important as Finland is in the risk of losing migrants after making signiﬁcant investments in their integration efforts, including language and vocational training, only to see them leaving the country due to psychosocial maladjustment in the Finnish society. There is no doubt that due to stagnating economy and the ageing population, Finland will be in dire need of skilled migrant labour in the future (OECD, 2019). Policymakers need to consider these issues seriously further.

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Queries and/or remarks

[Q1] Please note that 'Fig. 5' was not cited in the text. Please check that the citation suggested by the appropriate place, and correct if necessary.

[Q2] Please provide page range for the Ref.“Caselli, 2015.”

[Q3] Uncited reference: Ministry of Employment and the Economy Finland, 2012 is not cited in text; please indicate where a citation should appear or delete it from the reference list.