Is Finland really like a “heaven” as it is advertised in intl. Media?

26 comments

1. It was heaven after 90s depression to 2008 financial crisis, after that been downhill

2. Who describes it as heaven? And for whom?

3. > Education is considered better than USA

   By whom? What level of education? What evidence is there to show that Aalto or Uni of Helsinki produce better specialists than MIT or Harvard?

4. Short version: nowhere is perfect. Some places are just better than others – where “better” really depends on what you value. Do you want to run a company? Do you want to start a family? Do you want to get a suntan? Do you want cheap booze and high-quality food? Do you want great public healthcare? Do you want cheap internet? Finland is better for some of these, not so great for others.

   Let’s take a few of your points:

   >F’ed economy around the world after COVID

   Tell me one place that hasn’t – especially a place economically close to Finland in size.

   >Foreigners not knowing Finnish

   Depends on the industry and the geographical location. There are a few tech hubs where all it matters is that you’re good at working in tech. Then nobody cares. Healthcare? Teaching? You probably want to know the local language.

   >Racism of employers (didn’t understand this though is it black v white racism or smth else)

   It’s not skin colour. Mostly it’s cultural racism of close neighbours (think Russians, even before the Ukraine thing). It’s minority groups such as the Romani gypsies. And yes, it can be certain immigrant groups, particularly Somalis, who came here in several waves over the years.

   >Finland is one of the most *people friendly* country with plethora of opportunities

   >Language isn’t even a barrier many Finns are fluent English speakers

   >They are short on skilled labour (not talking about cleaning jobs as mentioned in original post) and are asking people to move in

   These are all true, especially if you’re in Helsinki or one of the tech hubs. Otherwise, maybe not so much.

   >Education is considered better than USA

   Until recently, it was considered better than or at least as good as most other Western nations.

   All in all, Finland is great for some things and utterly terrible for some others. If you believe anything otherwise (especially this unqualified “happiest country” nonsense peddled by the tabloid websites) then you’re a naïve fool. It’s just a place, with people. It’s as good or as bad as anywhere else, entirely depending on how you define “good” and “bad”.

5. Finland is happiest country in the senior age range, and their votes weight a lot because elderly is the major age group here. Also non-happy people either move out or unalive themselves.

6. Finland isn’t heaven, it’s more like cold hell. Lovely cold hell. 

7. If you are middle class and employed full-time, Finland is pretty nice. Many institutions are crumbling, though. Health care and primary education in particular, and there is no end in sight. At present, there is an overall feeling of malaise and hopelessness in our country, especially since the ineptitude of the current government is becoming clearer every day.

   On the other hand, if you do find full-time employment with a decent salary, you might enjoy Finland a lot. Especially in a university town outside Helsinki.

8. Finnish have natural high IQ, and excellent education system. Our wellbeing is built with these, works are designed to smart and productive people, all goes good.

   When foreigners with not much to give, come here to enjoy all the benefits of Finland, they will disappoint because the level is too high for them to work, and the free living and paradise they have told, is a big fat lie.

9. If you’re black or brown, you will probably have a hard time convincing people of your actual skills and getting a decent pay. Most likely, you’ll end up joining the ranks of the unemployed toilet cleaner PhDs. If you’re white male (haven’t seen ANY women working in IT/CS here) then you’ll most likely get a fair treatment at the workplace I’d say, more or less regardless of nationality. The workplace is the most relevant aspect as you’ll be totally alone otherwise. Forget about friends and socialising with the locals outside of the workplace or organised events.

   Anyway just apply and negotiate a good salary, if you manage to secure it, then you’ll be ok until they lay you off (first 6 months it can happen without notice, and there’s no compensatory salaries or such for it).

10. This is a nonsense question. Of course it is not. But it is also not portrayed as a heaven if you have slightest capability for critical thinking. If you extrapolate simplistic news pieces, you might come to the conclusion that Finland would be perfect but that would require criminal levels of jumping to conclusions. 

11. As for that article it’s rather difficult for you to find a job without knowing Finnish. You can manage by yourself with English, but most companies want you to be able to have intercourse in Finnish to get employed.

12. Good God no. It will only get worse.

13. I am tempted to say the supposed “racism” is nothing else than the inability of immigrants to integrate, so that they perceive normal Finnish behavior as “racism”. That’s not the whole story, but it’s a good introduction. Finns have an extremely steep gradient on how distant they are to strangers vs. friends. This has been validated in studies of e.g. physical touching frequency. If they don’t know you, you’ll get the minimum of already extremely sparse Finnish politeness. Mind you, they behave the same towards other Finns.

    Does actual racism exist in Finland – absolutely. Try getting a job with a Roma name. But, Finns themselves are not former colonists or slaveowners. They’ve mostly been on the receiving end of that. As such, the sort of highly systematic racism you’d see in e.g. the southern U.S. has no tradition in Finland.

    Immigration has also been mismanaged, with the result that lots of Finns think foreigners are not here to work. The main reason for this is that the Finnish job market has not been able to integrate those who have immigrated. This is mostly because it’s hard to employ *anyone* in this country without massive taxes and bureaucracy.

14. Asking reddit will give you reddit answers. You’re better off just googling. FYI the happiness report also includes a section for immigrants and they score highly as well. You can google happiest immigrants.

15. Well, the country is very beautiful. Almost two hundred thousand lakes in a country as large as Germany, and about half of the size of Texas. Then we have also a long sea coast and huge beautiful archipelagoes. So there is a nice view after every few kilometers. Finns have also more holiday apartments per capita than any other nation on earth. This might be one of the key factors for Finland’s happiness.

    Then the living standard is very high. Maybe a bit higher than the image of Finland tells?

    Numbeo says that the purchasing power in Finland is higher than for example in Norway:

    https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/rankings_by_country.jsp?displayColumn=5

    One cultural factor in Finland, which is not known outside of Finland is, that Finland is culturally more diverse than its neighbours. Denmark and Sweden are relatively homogenous. The culture of native people there is about the same in the whole country, but in Norway and especially in Finland there are multiple different local cultures inside the country. Finland was formed from several different nations that had even wars with each other in the prehistoric time of Finland. These tribes still exist in Finland and their characters are totally different. Some of them are very lively and chatty, some are extremely calm and stoic, some are proud and productive. So there are many Finlands inside Finland. Then the city culture is quite often very different than the culture on the countryside next to the city.

    Then there are all kind of political, ideological differences, and there is our Swedish speaking culture (5% of the population), our own Bible Belt and so on. My honest opinion is that the information about Finland in the international media and social media is mostly total nonsense. Finland is a very unique place. When people come to Finland, it takes about two minutes when they realize that this country is something totally different than any other country. So this is a good travel destination for those who have seen all.

16. It’s not foreigners but immigrants getting so good social benefits the prefer staying unemployed

17. Thumbs up for specific questions, easy to answer.

    >Finland is one of the most people friendly country

    Depends on your meaning. Friendly as in safe and peaceful for almost everyone, yes. Friendly as in easy to connect with strangers, no.

    >with plethora of opportunities

    If you mean career opportunities, they exist but are probably average in EU comparison.

    >Language isn’t even a barrier many Finns are fluent English speakers

    Correct. Some English-speaking people live here for decades without bothering to learn Finnish. Could be lonely, but doable.

    >They are short on skilled labour (not talking about cleaning jobs as mentioned in original post) and are asking people to move in

    Kinda true. If you have some kind of senior IT experience and aren’t looking for an internationally competitive salary, I’d say you’ll land a job pretty easily.

    >It’s 3rd or 1st (don’t exactly remember the rank) passport amongst all countries in world

    True, but probably not important. We enjoy the benefits of a “good passport” only when travelling or moving abroad. And if you want one, citizenship takes years.

    >Education is considered better than USA

    Sure, it’s okay and almost free, so good place to have kids or re-educate yourself as an adult. If you’re rich and looking for top universities, then USA is better.

18. Well, no

19. short answer: no. long answer: in details, you find beauty from time to time 🙂 (lacks sophisticated explanation, but as said, it deserves a “long” answer. )

20. I can’t speak from experience, but a close friend left to a village where they Swedish . He met a girl on euro trip and moved to Finland with her. He told me that it was very hard finding a job and when he found is manual labor in a factory. Most of his free time he spends wandering the woods/forest or drinking. Living is pretty expensive so they live cheap. All in all it is very calm there and he has no plans on returning his never ending war country. Also he is kind of introvert and the country he came from the norm is being extrovert. ATM he lives there 3 years and is not a citizen yet.

21. If you ask the typical foreigner why they move to finland, the response is it’s good to raise a family, cheap healthcare and education.

    People move to Finland for their Kids, not themselves. Skilled workers in competitive industries typically move to economically incentivised countries like USA, UK where their income will offset the cost of living. Finland can’t offer the income, but can offer stability and subsidised living.

    Finland doesn’t attract the top talent in the world for sure, but many people move here for a chance at a stability for their families.

22. Well it’s a difficult question to answer concretely. But being from Aus I can give it a shot:

    1. Quality of life here is good. Also people have good opportunities, education is free, healthcare is free, and the bureaucracy works well compared to many other countries.
    2. There is a safety net. It is getting worse year by year and somewhat unsustainable sadly but it’s there.
    3. Minimal crime and generally a safe place to be. The amount of violence and aggression I see on a night out is 1/10th what I experienced in Australia.
    4. It’s a good place to have a kid, good maternal and paternal leave as well as affordable childcare.
    5. Transport works pretty well
    6. Lot more equality – I was surprised here to see women in construction sites and driving trucks. Not so many but a lot more than in other countries. Also things like men expected to pay for things and the women being at home is largely absent. Obviously there are still gender roles but much more balanced.
    7. People are a lot more balanced here than in Australia, they generally have less problems and I encounter less psychos. People are largely reasonable.
    8. Trust based society rather than every man for himself. This is reflected in business, in how country is policed, punishment for crime, how the transport works
    9. Low hierarchy country, how much money you have or your ‘status’ is not nearly as important as in other countries.
    10. University culture is overall very safe, inclusive and fun.
    11. Cost of living is reasonable. You can afford an apartment and food without starving even with a fairly basic wage.
    12. Low corruption in government
    13. Police can be trusted rather than feared
    14. Unionized and not overly capitalistic. Workers have power.
    15. Wealth inequality is not so bad
    16. Low pollution, clean and safe water and food
    17. Good construction standards
    18. Overall human freedoms are very high
    19. Very free media
    20. Great English skills and finding work in English is not impossible with education and working in an English friendly field – eg; business and IT.
    21. People are reasonably content with a roof over their head and food on the table, a great need to be rich and powerful is relatively low on most people’s agendas
    22. People are relatively happy.
    23. Really Finland is one of the best places in the world to live and raise a family.

    Some downsides:

    1. People are not as social (but this cuts both ways) people will leave you be if you do not wish to be bothered. In Australia people are friendly but strangers will happily comment on your appearance and other things and say negative things to you as well.
    2. Weather, obviously.
    3. Economy is certainly worse than a lot of other places but that happens.
    4. Racism is a problem but it is everywhere. Finland is often named as ‘most racist country’ but that list only includes like 15-20 other countries.
    5. Finnish language is hard and it makes it tough to assimilate but not impossible if you try. I’d argue it is the same anywhere aside from English speaking countries because everyone knows English already.
    6. Country is going a bit downhill as we are running low on money and high on debt.
    7. Can be a bit boring
    8. Taxes (but you get a lot for them)

    That’s my two cents.

23. It is a great country…I will never move back to the US. But yes, jobs are hard to come by if you do not speak Finnish and you really have to rely on personal contacts which are not that easy to make at first.

24. Heaven? Not at all. A pretty great country to live in? Yeah, sure. Personal preferences on lifestyle and views on family etc can steer you elsewhere though. This is a good place to raise children, but probably not the best for power couple childless jetset lifestyle.

25. As noted by comments already here, Finland is not perfect. However, there are lots of things that are common to Finnish people, but may be extremely rare to someone, for example, from America. Public transport is excellent, streets are so safe you can basically park a bike unattended anywhere without a lock and chances are it won’t get stolen (although you should lock it) and the people are fairly antisocial, but generally help when you need it.

    I’m from Joensuu originally. I went to the highschool that’s connected to UEF in Joensuu. I’m also currently a university student in Aalto University (Espoo) studying computer science, so I’ll share from my own experiences and notes.

    First some basics on the uni. The location of the University is basically in the city center. There’s massive sports arenas, gyms and even places where you can swim right next to it. There’s everything you’ll need about a kilometer walk away max, and if not you can always take the bus. The student apartments should be right next to the university (like it’s common prob).

    Now for the stuff you actually asked about. I have a few friends in uni who are from far places like Vietnam. Most of them work somewhat on the side. At least in Aalto, the racism doesn’t seem to be there. Courses are actually mostly in English, and there seem to be some 20% clearly international students in the school. It is in the capital area, so in Joensuu it won’t be 20%, but I see it as fairly similar. Chances are that even if you don’t know Finnish, you’ll survive easily and won’t get commented on about your origins in University. The employment might seem a bit tricky though, depending on a lot of factors. In Aalto, we have some services that help people affiliated become connected with employers in the field, and I suspect UEF might also have something similar.

    Outside of your university space, finding a job may prove more difficult. A lot of the older Finns don’t speak English. They have no need to. So job requirements often have Finnish on there, or just the whole application is in Finnish. There definitely exist places that hire English speaking, and I assume that if you’ll be working with CS experts they’ll all know English, but working with customers most likely not. Imo, your luck depends on what kind of work you’re looking for.

    In Joensuu, it’ll probably be hard to find a job that’s only English speaking. In Helsinki, it probably won’t affect you much. Depends on the area.
    I haven’t heard of anyone being racist or negative towards American, Asian or Black people. It does probably exist, but it’s not common. Even if you’re russian, in Joensuu that’s fairly common since it’s close to the border. Might impact your chances at getting a job, however.

26. It’s certainly on the slide.