Concerned with the "institutional normalization of full employment" in Finland in the 1970s and 80s (and with its failure in the 1990s), this project is concerned to analyse how the development of welfare state institutions (especially social insurance and public services) is linked up with changes in patterns of employment and unemployment and in social divisions of work (between the private sector, the public sector and households, paid and unpaid work, gender segregation of work).
The purpose is to demonstrate, firstly, how in the 1970s and 80s labour reserves were mobilized, hidden unemployment largely eliminated, and how the female employment pattern changed to resemble that of males through increased "normal employment" (largely in the public sector) on the one hand, and through normalization of its alternatives as "paid motherhood", open unemployment and early retirement, on the other hand. The links of this change with the changes in industrial structure, employment in welfare and personal services, and the division of labour between the public sector and households are also addressed. Further, the project will look at the roles of the private sector and voluntary organizations, which in comparison with many other countries are relatively insignificant in Finland.
The work will also show how the "normalization of full employment" produced its own failure. In the 1980s, paradoxically, the system normalized chronic unemployment (the combination of subsidized employment and unemployment; unemployment pensions) and at the same time almost created a shortage of labour (especially women for caring jobs).
The recession of the 1990s undermined the system's fiscal basis and threatened to marginalize increasing numbers of people.
The study is based on statistical data from various sources, the most important of which are extensive panel data sets for 1970-90 and 1987-1993, produced by combining information from various registers.
Simo Aho
in collaboration with Jouko Nätti (Univ. of Jyväskylä) and Asko Suikkanen (Univ. of Lapland)
Funded by Ministry of Labour 1994-97.
In this study the effectiveness of labour market policies is measured by comparing the labour market careers of persons who during a given year completed labour market training or a period of subsidized employment (available mainly for the long-term unemployed, young people without jobs and other specified groups) with the careers of those who were unemployed but who did not complete labour market training or subsidized employment, and with the careers of the economically active population on average. The effects of various background factors on labour market careers (sex, age, education, earlier labour market experience, etc.) are controlled for.
The analysis is based on a unique data set which combines individual-level information from various registers maintained by the Ministry of Labour, Statistics Finland, pension insurance institutions, the tax authorities, and others. A panel data set was produced for the study, covering the period between 1987 and 1992; data on 1993-95 will be added during 1996. The data include details on employment (periods employed, type of employer, industrial branch, etc.), unemployment, education, family conditions, incomes (earnings, pensions, various social security benefits), place of residence, etc.
The first report of the project was published in early 1996. The analysis shows that labour market training had in late 80's and early 90's a distinct independent positive effect on the later labour market career, but the performance of those who had completed a period of subsidised employment did not differ from that of the comparison groups.
The project will be continued. In the second phase the follow-up periods are extended and new research tasks are included in the analysis.
Publication:
Aho, Simo; Nätti, Jouko & Suikkanen, Asko (1996) Työvoimakoulutuksen ja tukityöllistämisen vaikuttavuus 1988-1992, Työministeriö, Työpoliittinen tutkimus 144, Helsinki.
Simo Aho and Jukka Vehviläinen
A European Social Fund Project.
The entry of school leavers into employment has become a serious problem in Finland since unemployment multiplied in the early 90´s — especially for those with no vocational training.
From the beginning of 1996 the right to unemployment subsidy was abolished from those under 20 years old, who do not seek for further education, and at the same time an extensive programme of new training opportunities was introduced. In this project the main task is to evaluate the effect of this reform. Also the signifigance of ESF-program YOUTHSTART is analysed. Other important goals of the project are to study what kind of young people remain outside vocational training or interrupt education, and why, and to investigate the mechanisms that lead to marginalization.
The research is based on extensive registers based panel data on background, employment and unemployment, and on integration into further training of 15-19 year olds who were registered as unemployed in 1994 or 1995. The statistical analysis is complemented by research based on interviews of unemployed school leavers who have not started further training or have interrupted training.
The project is funded by European Social Fund and Ministry of Labour and it will be completed by April, 1997.
Simo Aho, Riikka Kivimäki, Pasi Koski
Can new entrepreneurship resolve the unemployment problem? This question is addressed in WRC projects funded by the Ministry of Labour for 1994-1995:
The Structural change of entrepreneurship and growth industries 1970-1993
This project, which was completed in 1995, uses existing statistics to trace the development over the past two decades and the future prospects of entrepreneurship and employment in manufacuring and service industries.
Publication: Simo Aho & Pasi Koski: Yrittäjyyden rakennemuutos ja kasvualat, Työpoliittinen tutkimus 106, Työministeriö, Helsinki 1995.
Simo Aho, Riikka Kivimäki & Pasi Koski
New sustainable entrepreneurship?
A study on starting up new enterprises and on the functioning of Jobs & Society's Enterprise Agencies.
This study was concerned with the founding of new firms by customers of two Finnish enterprise agencies in 1992-93. Their success was followed up until spring 1995. The role of enterprise agencies in relation to other organizations engaged in promoting new entrepreneurship is also analysed. The project was completed in 1995.
Publications:
- Simo Aho & Riikka Kivimäki & Pasi Koski: Uusi, kestävä yrittäjyys? Tutkimus yrittäjäksi ryhtymisestä ja uusyrityskeskusten toiminnasta, Työpoliittinen tutkimus 118, Työministeriö, Helsinki 1995.
- Riikka Kivimäki: Yrittäjät, perhe ja sukupuoli. Teoksessa
Merja Kinnunen & Päivi Korvajärvi (toim.) Työelämän sukupuolistavat käytännöt, Vastapaino, Tampere 1996
There are plans to continue the studies on entrepreneurship and employment.
This study is concerned with the employment and labour markets of men and women from point of view of the gendered division of labour. It addresses the fundamental question of how gender is built into the structures of the labour market and, in particular, how the gendered division of labour and the gendered structures of the labour market have changed in Finland with the economic restructuration and modernization of society.
The forms and changes in men's and women's employment and labour markets will be analysed in the context of occupational segregation. How have the change in industrial structure, the growth of the welfare state and the increased participation of women in the labour force affected the dynamics of employment and occupational segregation, and how is segregation reproduced in the context of change?
The study will look not only at horizontal but also vertical segregation. How have the forms and changes in the gendered structures of the labour market affected the hierarchic differences and wage differentials between men and women?
Apart from exploring basic forms and changes of occupational segregation, the analysis also extends to gendered structures in the service sector (industry-level) and to certain occupations where there has been a dramatic change in the level of segregation (occupation-level). On these levels it is possible to look in more detail at the process of segregation and its reproduction and include some individual social factors (age, education, family, etc.) into the analysis. Carried out in three stages, the study will try to highlight different characteristics of the dynamic change of segregation and, in a broader context, of gender as a socially produced relation.
The study is based on a representative panel sample (10 %) of the 1970 - 1993 population censuses. It is intended as a doctoral dissertation in social policy.
Financing for this study will be provided by the Ministry of Labour.
In 1996 the WRC will be taking part in an international project on specific female occupations commissioned by the OECD, the Employment, Labour and Social Affairs Committee, and the Working Party on the role of women in the economy. The project is motivated by the aim of promoting the analysis of gender-based inequality in the labour market and of raising new questions about policy directions.
The focus of the projects will be on two groups, viz. secretarial staff and caring occupations.
The aim of the case studies will be:
- to study how far and in what way the heavy concentration of female employment in a few occupations is linked up with occupations which offer relatively slow progress in terms of income and career prospects;
- to identify the main factors responsible for the low level of advantages in each of the occupations concerned;
- to look into the possibilities of acting either directly on advantage levels or on the principal factors which determine them.
Special importance will be attached to identifying and examining situational disparities within one occupation, starting from the assumption that the existence of different situations may be the key to future action.
The project will involve between five and eight countries and produce national reports focusing on female occupations. A final report based on these national studies will be published at the beginning of 1997.
Women's participation in full-time wage employment in Finland is the highest in the OECD countries, and women's work careers are almost as continuous as men's, in spite of a relatively high fertility rate. This study is concerned to explore how children's daily care was organized and how women's work was normalized in the rapid transformation from agricultural to industrial and further to "post-industrial" society after the Second World War. These questions are closely interwoven with the formation of the Finnish welfare state.
In the Nordic countries public services are often seen as the key factor that makes possible women's wage employment outside the home: as well as themselves offering job opportunities, they greatly facilitate women's way to a work career. Research so far has paid only little attention to the effects of social policy measures, which give the mothers of small children the option of paid absenteeism from the labour market without risking their labour status, e.g. maternity leave and benefit, and child home care leave and subsidy. These measures have also effected both the supply and the demand of female labour.
This study presents an empirical investigation of how the emergence and development of welfare state services and money transfers have influenced women's choices to opt out to the labour market and work career, the dynamics of the female labour market and, finally, of how child care arrangements have changed from the 1960s to the 1980s. In the late 1980s, 87 % of women aged 25-44 years were in the active labour force, but paradoxically only half of the children under school age were in public (and privat) day care systems.
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