Question about poverty and youth unemployment in Finland?

5 comments

1. As someone who grew up in poverty here, Some people just aren’t educated enough for better jobs. there are multiple reasons for this Exs: Illness.

   There just aren’t enough jobs and the qualifications are very VERY high.

   Yes there are people leaving for work to Norway and Sweden & other places in search for better pay.

2. Because wages are small and bills are high. And many people live alone, especially students. You can easily have to pay 500-800€ in a month in bigger cities, especially in Helsinki it’s nothing new to have to pay 1000€/month for a small apartment. If u get paid from your job even 2000€ in a month, it leaves 1000 for rest of bills, electric and water, car, etc. IF you have job and are strong enough to do a job after long school day.
   I don’t live in Helsinki, and my rent is 480€/month including water. I get about 520€ from Kela every month, and it leaves 40€ for rest of month to use. I mainly eat just bread in home lmao. And electricity is every 3 months around 20€. There is a lot of people who can’t even get that 40€ in a month because everything is so damn expensive.

   And even media tries to sell ”most happy country” thing, I can be truthful. I have never known one person (mostly students), who wouldn’t had any mental health issues. Okay, maybe some, but definietly less than those who have something going on their life. And you can have to wait months for therapist, even more if u need bigger help. Most people are so broken after school day, that working for more money is big nono, unless you want to kinda kill yourself inside. Sure, compared to many places it’s fine to live here, but I wouldn’t all us happy country. Depression is meme going around here, but it’s also big and sad truth behind the curtains.

   So my experience is, bad mental health issues, hard to find a job which would fit in school days, hard to even find place which would hire student, no enough help to help with problems, and fking high prices.
   And then ofc, many families with childs and old people are also there with students. Just noth enough money from jobs etc. Childs are expensive af. But yeah, something like this.

   Education is most of the time free, yes. Until point. Some schools need computer, books, clothes etc. Buying these can be very dramatic for those families who already have less money.
   ”Education gap” comes usually with how your parents are educated. If your parents are highly educated, it’s more a chance that child has better motivation and more big dreams to ’become something big’, when childs in poor families have learned that it’s very hard to so something, and smaller things are fine. There is some research done about this.

3. First of all, these comparisons are never apples to apples. Low income definition in Finland is more inclusive than Canada (60% vs 50% of median income). The percentage of this definition in Canada is about 13.4% and 12.4% in Finland. Canada has quite a bit more low-income households since the definition is stricter there.

   That first link is people in risk of low income or social exclusion. From your link: “The level of risk of poverty or social exclusion is clearly lower in Finland than in Europe on average. In the EU 28 approximately 22.4 per cent of the population were at risk of poverty or social exclusion in 2016 when the share in Finland was 15.7 per cent. Finland’s share is the third lowest among the EU countries. In Finland, the risk of poverty or social exclusion is through low income directed especially at young adults and persons aged over 75 for whom the risk of poverty or social exclusion is on the EU average level. Especially for children, people of working age and younger pensioners the risk is clearly below the EU average.”

   Then to the question of why is this high and isn’t this against what Finland is. I think you have misunderstood. Finland isn’t a country where wealth is guaranteed. It is a country where you won’t die and you will get support. However, that support isn’t high. Living on governmental economic support always puts you in the poverty group. It is enough money to get by but you won’t be investing or buying cars with it. (Honestly, this is how it should be in my opinion but lets not get into the opinions here too much)

   Then to the youth unemployment. Canada and Finland seem to have the same rate here at about 20.5%. Sweden has 3 percentage points higher number. Norway has 9 percentage points lower number. I don’t really know why these differences exist. Norway shouldn’t really be compared directly to other Nordic countries because of their wildly different economic structure.

   Here again the issue is apples to apples comparison. First of all, 20% of all 15-24-year-olds are not unemployed. People who are studying are calculated towards unemployment if they would like to find a job. So the unemployment rate isn’t really a true unemployment rate. I think this is a better statistic: [https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Statistics_on_young_people_neither_in_employment_nor_in_education_or_training](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Statistics_on_young_people_neither_in_employment_nor_in_education_or_training)

   Finns do leave Finland for better opportunities but more people move to Finland. It is something like 34 k move in and 17k move out. Usually the economic reasons to move abroad are lower taxes and better pay for specialists. Norway is a bit different as many nurses and low-education people move there due to higher wages.

4. From an immigrant point of view there is no poverty in Finland. There are jobs you just have to meet up with criteria required for your specialty .

5. Education is free but there are many problems with getting said education. Finland has very many small towns/farming villages where getting access to services is hard.
   The salaries are not bad but not that great compared to the living costs, so there is a bit of a ‘brain drain’ happening with specialists or other sought after professions.