Essays on immi­gration: scale and trends

This is the second part of the series “Essays on immigration”. The previous piece in the series was about the immigration debate . Later pieces have been published on family-based immigration , labour-based immigration , those who came to study , those granted asylum , asylum seekers and myths about immigration .

How does Finland’s immigration compare to Denmark and Sweden?

In discussions about immigration, it is often unclear what scale of numbers is being talked about. It can also be difficult for listeners to grasp how large or small the figures are when numbers are mentioned. Hundreds or hundreds of thousands may sound equally large or small. When talking about numbers, Denmark or Sweden are often cited as examples of the consequences of immigration, for better or worse — yet it is rarely explained how much or how little immigration Finland has compared to these two countries.

Around 300,000 people moved to Finland between 2011 and 2021.

Denmark has roughly as many people as Finland, but twice as many people move there each year as to Finland. Since this has been going on for decades, it amounts to several hundred thousand more immigrants than Finland has.

Sweden, in turn, receives proportionally three times as many people per year as Finland, relative to population size. In absolute terms, that means roughly six times the annual immigration. For example, between 2011 and 2021 one million more people moved to Sweden than to Finland, with around 300,000 moving to Finland in the same period.

What can we learn from Sweden’s example?

When discussing Sweden’s immigration, it should be noted that the country has had many problems in recent years with people of immigrant background, especially second-generation immigrants. According to Swedish researchers, this is largely because Sweden built separate residential areas — so-called “million programme” suburbs — into which many immigrants moved. Social services, schools and other services were subsequently cut in those areas. This is a story of segregation, as a result of which many have experienced criminal activity as their only means of living the life they want.

The other side of the coin, however, is that the Swedish economy has performed considerably better than Finland’s — and one major reason for this is the scale of immigration. Immigrants often have more children than Swedes or Finns. They are also often of working age. As a result, Sweden’s age structure is considerably healthier than Finland’s. Our public finance problems stem largely from a poor demographic structure — the so-called pension time bomb, in which there are more pensioners relative to a shrinking working-age population.

In 2022, 100,000 Ukrainians came to Finland.

Three numbers worth keeping in mind

Overall, Finland has literally a fraction of the immigrants that Denmark or Sweden have. Comparing ourselves with them is therefore not very meaningful in most cases. A possible Swedish or Danish path is still far in the future — and even then only if we make the same mistakes. And in fact, that is one of the most meaningful ways to compare ourselves with Denmark and Sweden: to look at what mistakes they have made, for example in integration, and compare those measures with Finland’s equivalents.

On the subject of the scale of immigration, three key figures are worth bearing in mind. First, the number of Ukrainians who came to Finland in 2022: 100,000. Second, the Confederation of Finnish Industries’ estimate of the level of labour immigration needed to secure the pension system : 40,000. And finally, the total number of people who move to Finland each year: approximately 40,000 — roughly the same as the population of Kirkkonummi.