The church in Narpes
Attempting to explain the results, Björn Sundell, in charge of Social Analysis at Magma, felt that one reason for the difference may well be that, 'Many Swedish-speakers are more used to having to speak another language and deal with another culture.' For Sundell, many Swedish-speakers live in areas where they often have to speak 'in a language that is a foreign language for us: Finnish.'
Even in places with large numbers of Swedish-speakers along the west coast, Sundell observed that, 'You can get by speaking only in Swedish but if you are a Swedish-speaker you still end of speaking both languages quite a lot because there is a lot of interaction between the different language groups.'
However, Sundell stressed that attitudes amongst Swedish-speakers towards Finnish-speakers were, according to the research, very different from their views of foreigners. In fact, when asked more specific questions about their own lives, Swedish-speakers were far less in favour of immigration.
'It's a problem with many surveys that if ask people a question they may say one thing but if you relate to their own lives they say something else. They may say they are in favour of combatting pollution but if you say "Would you be happy with a reduced standard of living to pay for it?" then they say "No".' Something similar occurred in Magma's survey.
'They were asked "How many foreigners can you accept in your town or village?"' explains Sundell. 'One third refused to answer. Two percent said they would accept nil, 27 percent said they would accept between 1 and 5 percent, 17 percent said between 6 and 10 percent, 8 percent said between 11 and 20 percent and 11 percent would accept more than twenty percent, which is a reality in some parts of Europe. So the largest group would accept no more than 5 percent foreigners where they live.'
Overall, the highest percentages of Finland-Swedes wanting 10 percent or fewer foreigners in their town could be found in the main cities such as Vantaa and Turku. However, nobody in Helsinki wanted there to be 'nil' foreigners.
It has been speculated that middle-class tend to be more in favour of immigration because they benefit from cheap labour but often do not live in poorer areas which attract immigrant labourers. Finland-Swedes are, on average, slightly better off, better educated and live longer than Finnish-speakers but Sundell does not think that this is a factor in the results.
'We are only slightly better off,' he says. He also wanted to stress that, 'In Oulu, Swedish-speakers are wealthy because they are funded by these different cultural foundations. They are well-off but they are an exception. There are many working-class Swedish-speakers and Swedish-speaking areas with a lot of immigrants such as Närpes where they work in tomato farming and have learnt Swedish rather than Finnish. They have actually integrated very well there. But it is true that in working-class areas of Helsinki where there are many immigrants there are very few Swedish-spreakers. But the survey that we did just asked what town you were from not about the part of the town.'
