Migration flows between Finland and the Baltic Sea region

Abstrakti

In 2001 the number of immigrants coming to Finland was 18,955 (Statistical Yearbook of Finland 2002). The main immigrant groups in Finland come from Russia, Estonia and Sweden. The structure of the immigrant population and the reasons for their arrival here have changed over time. In the 1980s people moved to Finland because of a specific job or for family reasons, such as marriage to a Finn. The majority of the immigrants in the 1990s were Ingrian Finnish returnees and refugees who commonly did not have a job pre-organized, nor could they benefit from the existing social networks that promote employment and integration (Forsander 2001; Jaakkola 2000). The large number of Russian and Estonian citizens is mainly explained by the returnee status that was given to the Ingrians in 1991. The same year also marked the peak of Russian immigration to Finland. Return migration back to Russia has been small in numbers (Table 1).