Introduction

All of the Nordic countries have historically been rather homogeneous in their national culture and population. In Finland, a country of 5.3 million inhabitants, the largest minority are Swedish-speaking Finns, who form about 5.4 per cent (290,000) of the population and enjoy extensive rights guaranteed, for example, by the fact that Swedish is the country's second official language. In addition, there is a small indigenous Sami population (9,000), and a Roma minority (10,000). The immigrant population was very small until the beginning of the 1990s with the arrival of the first larger groups, Ingrian return migrants from Russia and refugees from Somalia. During the labour migration period following the Second World War, Finland was still an emigration country. Because the differences in the standard of living were still great between Finland and its closest Scandinavian neighbour, a total of 530,000 Finns moved to Sweden to work in the booming economy in the 1960s and 1970s. Seventy-five per cent of all Finns who emigrated after the Second World War headed for Sweden, although an estimated half of them have since returned (Forsander, 2003, p 55; Korkiasaari and Söderling, 1998, pp 8-10).

The numbers of incoming migrants exceeded outgoing migrants for the first time as late as the beginning of the 1980s (Heikkilä and Järvinen, 2003, p 103). Since then the country has experienced a relatively fast process of internationalisation, including consistent annual increases in the numbers of migrants. In 2008 a total of 29,100 immigrants entered Finland, the highest number since the country's independence in 1917. Net immigration for the same year was 15,450, the highest number in the post-war period (Statistics Finland, 2009).

Increased movement from European Union (EU) countries, especially Estonia, partially explains the increase. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) International Migration Outlook (2008), 15,000 EU citizens entered Finland for work-related reasons, and another 14,000 were visa-exempt, largely berry pickers and seasonal workers in the market garden industry. Some 7,200 from non-EU countries were granted work-related residence permits in 2006, almost half of them Russians. As is evident in a comparison of the labour migration data and the long-term immigration numbers, many of the foreign workers are in Finland on a temporary basis.