‘I had to move somewhere:’ Leaving Finland to Study in Sweden

Sweden has been a long-standing destination for Finnish migration, but recent years have witnessed an increase in youth migration from Finland to Sweden (Kepsu & Henriksson, Hjärnflykt eller inte? Del II. Svenskspråkig ungdomsflyttning till Sverige: trender och drivkrafter. Helsingfors: Tankesmedjan Magma, 2019). Contemporary media discourses talk of ‘brain drain’ and the young and supposedly well educated people ‘fleeing’ Finland to find their future elsewhere (e.g. Nyberg, Positiv grundton låter lockande. Österbottens tidning, 2016). This chapter is focused on young adults from the Swedish-speaking minority, who left Finland to pursue higher education in Sweden between 2010 and 2017. The aim is to map and analyse causes and motivations for moving in the light of this contemporary media discussion, where the exit of a linguistic minority has become a concern (e.g. Övergaard, Flyttvåg till Sverige oroar Henriksson. Vasabladet, 2016). Previously, migration to Sweden mostly contained low qualified people finding employment in industry (Svanberg & Tydén, Tusen år av invandring: en svensk kulturhistoria. Gidlund, 1992; Häggström et al., När finländarna kom—migrationen Finland-Sverige efter andra världskriget. Statens institut för byggnadsforskning, 1990), while those leaving during the 2010s are thought to be highly qualified and working in high status professions (cf. Kepsu, Hjärnflykt eller inte? En analys av den svenskspråkiga flyttningen mellan Finland och Sverige 2000–2015. Magma-pamflett 2. Helsingfors: Magma, 2016). In this study, migrants have the opportunity to tell their stories of moving from one country to another: their own motives for moving and their experiences of migration. The analysis thus focuses on their own interpretations of mobility, using the theoretical category of young (or emerging) adults as an analytical tool (Arnett, Emerging adulthood: The winding road from the late teens through the twenties. Oxford University Press, 2004; cf. Zackariasson, Maktkamper och korridorfester. En etnologisk studie av kulturella processer och gruppinteraktion i två studentkorridorer. Etnolore 23. Skrifter från etnologiska avdelningen. Uppsala universitet, 2001).