Freedom of choice, gender equality, or employment promotion? Finnish party positions on childcare in the light of election manifestos 2015

The principle of freedom of choice has been a central element of Finnish family policy since the 1980s. It has been manifested most notably through the right for parents to choose between paid work supported by the use of public childcare and the right to stay home with children under three supported by the use of child home care allowance/leave. This article investigates how the principle of freedom of choice was politicized by eight leading parties during the Finnish parliamentary election campaign in 2015, through an analysis of election manifestos. First, we analyse to what extent this principle was politicized, and by whom? Secondly, we study how the principle was framed. The findings show that the principle of freedom of choice was a rather politicized topic, creating a cleavage between conservative and leftist/liberal parties. Moreover, they indicate a renegotiation of this principle in favour of higher parental employment promotion and gender equality

Opportunity Haringey: Haringey employment gap research report. Summary Report.

Haringey Council is developing ‘Opportunity Haringey’ – an inclusive economic framework. The aim is to shape and drive forward the Council’s ambitions for a local economy that moves from reacting and responding to the challenges of the pandemic to a pro-active partnership approach that unlocks the creativity of residents and businesses to harness Haringey’s strengths to secure economic prosperity for all that is fairer and greener. Opportunity Haringey is being developed by undertaking economic analysis and engaging and listening to businesses, residents and a range of local and strategic partners in order to understand the range of needs, demands and aspirations across the many diverse communities in the borough. The Haringey Employment Gap research project, a key part of Opportunity Haringey, was carried out during 2023 by London Metropolitan University in partnership with Haringey Council. The project is part of London Met Lab Empowering London initiative, which aims to engage the University with its community partners. The aim of the project is to identify those groups in Haringey who experience the highest levels of unemployment and to highlight the barriers they face in accessing jobs. It is well known that Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic residents, people with disabilities, young people and lone parents experience higher levels of unemployment and this research project seeks to identify which particular groups are most affected and what the main barriers are in accessing work. The research project looks at how well existing employment advisory services in Haringey support Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic residents, residents with disabilities, lone parents and young people to get into work. This Summary Report sets out the key findings and recommendations from the Haringey Employment Gap research project. It should be noted that while there are key differences in terms of the barriers to accessing work experienced by the different target groups in this research, such as race discrimination and discrimination against people with disabilities, there are also many common barriers that are experienced across all the target groups. Some of the key common barriers include low expectations and confidence to attain meaningful employment, poor experiences of employment support services, particularly of the Job Centres and for many women with children, especially single parents, unaffordable chilcare

The role of discourse in family policy reform - the case of Finland

Since 2011 and the onset of the economic crisis, Finnish governments have pressed for structural reforms, including unpopular cuts to family benefits and services. This article analyses the government discourse used for legitimating some of these reforms: the cutbacks in the child benefit and the restriction of full-time childcare. It also assess whether this discourse bore the hallmarks of a neoliberal austerity discourse, which could suggest that the reforms were not just a matter of fiscal balancing but also a matter of neoliberal welfare state restructuring. We argue that the economic crisis was central in the powerful ‘communicative’ discourse used by the governments for legitimating unpopular cuts. Not only did it draw on ideas from an austerity discourse advocating financial sustainability, fiscal prudency and debt reduction, it was also impregnated by ideas from a neoliberal worldview questioning some of the main principles of the ‘Nordic’ family policy model

Haringey employment gap research project: summary and full report

The Council is developing ‘Opportunity Haringey’ - an inclusive economic framework. The aim is to shape and drive forward the Council’s ambitions for a local economy that moves from reacting and responding to the challenges of the pandemic to a pro-active partnership approach that unlocks the creativity of residents and businesses to harness Haringey’s strengths to secure economic prosperity for all that is fairer and greener. Opportunity Haringey is being developed by undertaking economic analysis and engaging and listening to businesses, residents and a range of local and strategic partners in order to understand the range of needs, demands and aspirations across the many diverse communities in the borough. The Haringey Employment Gap research project, a key part of Opportunity Haringey, was carried out during 2023 by London Metropolitan University in partnership with the London Borough of Haringey. The project is part of London Met Lab Empowering London initiative, which aims to engage the University with its community partners. The aim of the project is to identify those groups in Haringey who suffer the highest levels of unemployment and to highlight the barriers they face in accessing jobs. It is well known that Black, Asian and minority ethnic residents, people with disabilities, young people and lone parents experience higher levels of unemployment and this research project seeks to identify which particular groups are most affected and what the main barriers are in accessing work. The research project looks at how well existing employment advisory services in Haringey support Black, Asian and minority ethnic residents, residents with disabilities, lone parents and young people to get into work. This Summary Report sets out the key findings and recommendations from the Haringey Employment Gap research project. It should be noted that while there are key differences in terms of the barriers to accessing work experienced by the different target groups in this research, such as race discrimination and discrimination against people with disabilities, there are also many common barriers that are experienced across all the target groups. Some of the key common barriers include low expectations and confidence to attain meaningful employment, poor experiences of employment support services, particularly of the Job Centres and for many women with children, especially single parents, unaffordable childcare. It should also be noted that many of the key findings and recommendations echo those of the recent No Wrong Door report by City Hall and The Young Foundation (2023) and The Commission on the Future of Employment Support interim report (2023) reports, particularly on how important it is to join up skills and employment support to deliver an accessible offer for job seekers

Islington disability and long-term health conditions employment project: final report

The aim of this research, conducted by London Metropolitan University in partnership with the London Borough of Islington, is to identify the levels of unemployment among residents with different disabilities and long-term health conditions including deafness and visual impairment living in the Borough and the extent to which existing employment services in the Borough support them getting into work. The research had two key elements: a quantitative analysis of economic inactivity and employment to identify both the levels of unemployment among people with disabilities but also whether there are people with particular disabilities and long-term health conditions who suffer more from unemployment, and secondly, a series of focus groups with those groups of people with particular disabilities to further investigate the barriers to employment they experience. The key point here is that ‘disability’ is an umbrella term and that people with particular disabilities and health conditions have different experiences and needs which need to be addressed if they are to be enabled to successfully access work. The research is part of the London Metropolitan University, London Met Lab Empowering London initiative, which aims to engage the University with its community partners. The key barriers to assessing work emerging from the research were: The key barriers identified by participants in the focus groups are highlighted below. • Unfair treatment, discrimination and lack of awareness, training and support from employers – perhaps the key barrier to emerge across all focus groups was unfair treatment and discrimination both in trying to get a job and when in the workplace. The issues highlighted time and again were a lack of awareness and support by employers in the workplace and associated issues of stigma, stereotyping and ignorance concerning people with mental health conditions, neuro-diverse people, people with learning disabilities, deaf people and people with visual impairment in particular. Many examples were given of the lack of support and awareness of the needs of neuro-diverse people or people with mental health conditions or of deaf people in the workplace. A number of participants in the deaf focus group had left jobs as a result of discrimination from managers and co-workers. There was a general emphasis on the need for disability awareness in workplaces. ‘in terms of reasonable adjustments, some organisations don’t know how to do that, it’s training. I think it’s about training and educating companies, organisations about how to support and how to make reasonable adjustments’ (Mental health focus group participant) A related issue was that of disclosure and the uncertainty and lack of clarity over at what point and to whom to disclose information about a health and especially a mental health condition. Participants in the focus group with people with mental health problems among others identified a sense that employers are scared of dealing with mental health issues in the workplace. Deaf participants had experienced discrimination extensively both in the workplace and in applying for jobs and raised a number of issues concerning the need for deaf awareness in the workplace including simple changes such as fire alarms for deaf people and more widely to challenge the endemic and harmful stereotyping of deaf people cognitive and overall abilities which prevents them securing employment. • Lack of opportunities in deaf and learning disability and general disability aware work environments. • Recruitment processes – the recruitment process was also highlighted as a key barrier to people with disabilities across all the focus groups although the reasons varied for particular groups. Telephone interviews especially for people with learning disabilities were given as one example of a barrier to accessing work while more widely, issues of online application processes and digital literacy were raised. • Digital literacy and exclusion –the increasing shift to online recruitment processes present a major barrier for people with lower levels of digital literacy or who lack access to a laptop and broadband at home as many people with disabilities on low incomes in the focus groups did. • History of low skilled and low paid employment – the experiences of many participants was of having access at best to low paid and low skilled employment. While this results in feelings of low confidence and expectations it also has the effect of pushing people with disabilities, sensory impairments and health conditions into poverty and many of the participants found themselves struggling with the cost of living. ‘The deaf people I work with tend to apply for and are more successful in working in less skilled sectors. These include cleaning roles, hospitality, care sector and retail positions’ (Employment support services stakeholder focus group) • Lack of confidence and low expectations – because of the discrimination and unfair treatment people with disabilities, sensory impairments and long term health conditions experience in accessing employment, there was a very strong sense of having low expectations about the possibility of finding a job let alone a well-paid or skilled job. Many people reported having a lack of confidence and self-esteem. • Low level of educational qualifications – whilst there was a spread of qualifications across the participants in focus groups, with high levels of qualifications amongst many people with mental health problems and neuro-diverse conditions, in general and amongst people with learning disabilities and deaf people in particular, participants had low levels of educational qualifications. • Negative experiences of education – participants with learning disabilities and deaf participants in particular voiced their negative experiences of mainstream education at both school and college. Again, this reflected both a lack of awareness of needs and lack of appropriate support. ‘I went to a deaf school and it was fantastic, I had all the access there that I needed. I was very lively person in the classroom. And then I went on to further education and I felt I was just completely knocked.’ (Deaf focus group participant) • Literacy – levels of literacy, especially literacy in the use of English amongst deaf participants whose first language is British Sign Language (BSL), was raised as a barrier to accessing employment and recruitment processes. • Complexity of the benefits system – for many participants a major concern and barrier is how getting a job will affect their benefits. In particular, people with learning disabilities or people with mental health conditions returning to work after a gap in employment, may need to try work in more than one workplace before they find something which suits their needs and are fearful of the impact this will have on their benefits. • Lack of disability awareness and support in services – the DWP and Job Centre were perceived by some participants and groups as having a lack of awareness and providing little support for people with learning difficulties and mental health problems in particular. There was a perception that support workers were not as supportive as they should be and that personnel changed frequently. However, many of the deaf participants had nothing but praise for the one deaf aware and BSL trained support worker in the local Barnsbury Job Centre who provided a crucial service to deaf service users, and highlighted the importance of deaf aware staff and support. ‘that one person is excellent. She's got the awareness, if that person wasn't there, we wouldn't have that access. Really, it's to do with her. We love her. She's really supportive of deaf people’ (Deaf focus group participant) • Lack of BSL support – the focus group with deaf participants highlighted the lack of BSL support as a barrier in accessing both education and employment. ‘lack of access to support in BSL is a barrier to deaf people in applying for job roles and navigating the employment system’ (Deaf focus group participant) • Length and cost of diagnosis for neuro-diverse conditions – a number of participants had received late diagnosis of autism and ADHD and raised issues concerning the length of time and cost of diagnosis as well as the lack of support for neuro-diverse employees in the workplace including a lack of consideration of needs in terms of workspace, lighting and methods of communication. • Cost of living – and cost and lack of access to gym and swimming facilities essential for rehabilitation – living on a low income is a reality for many people with disabilities and health conditions and was a key issue raised by participants. Almost all participants in the focus group with people with physical disabilities were struggling with the cost of living and identified a need in particular, for affordable, regular access to the gym or swimming pool for their rehabilitation

Politicising Finnish family policy reform 2007–2017

Family policy is an extensive and highly politicised field in social policy. Throughout the history of family policy in general, the aims have been to relieve poverty among families with children, increase fertility rates and, more lately, to reconcile work and family life. These aims have been reached through a combination of cash transfers to families with children and different benefits in kind, such as public childcare and parental leaves. What the particular aims of family policy should be, however, has changed over time and been discussed, negotiated and decided on by politicians and social actors, such as women’s groups and labour market organisations. This doctoral thesis investigates how reforms in selected Finnish family policy areas were politicised 2007—2017, a period of economic turmoil and a varying political landscape. The overall aim of this thesis was to study how the Finnish family policy system was reformed during this ten-year-period, and how the reforms were politicised, in terms of what ideas were prominent in the political discourse. In this doctoral thesis, an innovative way of studying reform was done, through studying reforms mainly from the input and the output perspectives, rather than focussing on the output and the outcome perspectives, which are typically the starting point in welfare state (reform) studies. The data consisted mainly of political documents, such as election manifestos, government programs, government bills and parliamentary minutiae. However, to get a more nuanced picture of the politicisation of family policy reform supplementary data, such as newspaper editorials and interviews (conducted in 2014) with family policy experts, were used for some of the articles. The data was analysed through qualitative content analysis. The results show that, first, family policy was frequently reformed during this period. In the beginning of the period, the governments pursued expanding policy adjustments to cushion families from the economic crisis, and even a radical reforms to improve gender equality was pursued. Later governments, however, pursued contracting policy adjustments combined with a contracting radical reform to the ECEC-system. Second, the result show that two ideas – social investment and neoliberal austerity – fought for precedence. On the one hand, human capital was strengthened through reforming the public childcare system to early childhood education and care (ECEC). The emphasis was on the importance on investing in the future of all children. On the other hand, this principle was later weakened when access to fulltime ECEC was limited to those parents who were working or studying fulltime, as well as to entrepreneurs. Thus, Finnish family policy remains highly politicised and based on the results it has indeed taken a turn towards a leaner family policy model. Whether this period was the staring point of a persistent leaner family policy model, compared to the generous Nordic family policy model, or whether this period only was an anomaly in Finnish family policy history, remains to be seen

Jämställdhet bland barn på daghem : en undersökning om när barn börjar tillägna sig sin könsroll

Syftet med detta examensarbete är att få fram när barn börjar tillägna sig sin könsroll. Jag vill med hjälp av min undersökning få fram i vilken ålder barns könsroll växer fram och vilka faktorer som inverkar på det. I den teoretiska delen redogörs för vad kön och genus innebär, vad könskultur och könsroller är, samt vilka resultat som framkommit av tidigare observation av barn och personal på daghem. Vidare diskuteras även hur man kan gå tillväga för ett mer jämställt daghem. För att fördjupa mig i när barnen börjar tillägna sig sin könsroll har jag i min forskning observerat treåringar och femåringar, samt diskuterat med dem. I undersökningen deltog sammanlagt 17 barn. Resultatet visade att femåringarna är medvetna om vad som förväntas av de olika könen och de tillägnade sig sin könsroll på ett annat sätt än treåringarna. Av resultatet att döma sker en förändring i könsrollerna från åldern tre till fem.The purpose of this thesis is to find out when children start acquiring their gender. With help of my research, I wish to obtain the age, at which children's gender role emerge and what factors affect it. The theoretical part describes what sex and gender is, what gender culture and gender roles mean, and what result has been obtained by previous observation of children and staff at a kindergarten. Furthermore, the issue on how to go about a more equal kindergarten, is being discussed. To go into when children start acquiring their gender, I have observed children, and discussed with them. The research included 17 children, aged three and five years. The results shows, that the five year old children are aware of what is expected of the different sexes, and they acquire their gender in a different way, than the three year old children. Of the result to assess, there is a change from the age three to five, when it comes to acquiring gender

Welfare experiments as tools for evidence-based policy making? The political debate on Twitter about the basic income trial in Finland

Considered scientific and objective tools, welfare experiments have become increasingly attractive for testing innovative policy reforms. The basic income especially has been a popular policy experiment, trialed in several communities. However, do policymakers use welfare experiments as a policy instrument to gain empirical evidence for contested policy ideas? What can the political debate on Twitter reveal about the strategic functions of welfare experiments? Using a unique dataset of Finnish MPs’ Twitter tweets on the basic income trial in Finland from 2017 to 2018, this article finds that Members of Parliament (MPs) neither waited for new empirical findings nor argued in a constantly coherent way. In contrast, while waiting for the evaluation, the tweets of the MPs became increasingly negative, even though no further empirical knowledge was available. The quantitative empirical analysis concludes that the reference to core welfare paradigms was essential to the legitimisation of basic income, although framing between political parties differed. In summary, this article contributes to a better understanding of the strategic function of welfare experiments and demonstrates the usefulness of Twitter data for social policy analysis that goes beyond hashtag-based, big data-driven research

Radical Reform Or Piecemeal Adjustments? The Case of Finnish Family Policy Reforms

Nyby J, Nygård M, Blum S. Radical Reform Or Piecemeal Adjustments? The Case of Finnish Family Policy Reforms. European Policy Analysis. 2018;4(2):190-213.Since the economic crisis, many welfare states reformed their social security systems to cut social expenditure, even in policy fields protecting the most vulnerable, such as family policy. Using qualitative content analysis, this article systematically examines reforms pursued in Finnish family policy 2007–2017, and establishes the direction and magnitude of these reforms. The result show that these fields were frequently reformed, containing both expanding and contracting policy adjustments, as well as contracting structural reforms. The result also show that the “Nordic” principle of universalism was slightly weakened and the principle of selectivity somewhat strengthened during this period

Gender equality or employment promotion? The politicization of parental leave policy in Finland

In 2022, a new parental leave system with equal leave rights for parents saw daylight in Finland. The road towards this reform was not entirely uncontroversial, and one stumble stone was different interpretations of the meaning of gender equality. This article contributes to the literature by analysing how seven political parties in Finland politicized the idea of gender equality and leave quotas during the 2010s. We argue that ideological factors delayed a reform of the leave system in a more gender-equal way, since left-wing parties did not only put more emphasis on gender equality and state-regulated leave quotas for fathers than conservatives, they also did so for somewhat other reasons connected with the Social Investment paradigm. Moreover, although the conservatives did warm up to the idea of gender equality on a general level during this period, and some of them started to support the use of leave quotas, providing some of the consensus needed for the 2021 reform, this did not alter their traditional views on the family and gender roles. Instead, the policy idea of leave quotas was reframed as an instrumental tool to achieve higher (maternal) employment, and only secondary as a tool for gender equality