Finnish Journal of Social Research

Mental well-being and fear: Examining the association between affective well-being and affective fear of crime in Finland

Pietari Kujala — 2024-12-20

There is a dearth of knowledge regarding the association between mental well-being and fear of crime. This study utilises several measures of well-being and fear to examine how poorer affective well-being is associated with affective fear of crime in Finland. In addition, the article explores the extent to which feelings of unsafety and generalised distrust moderate this association. The research comprised 2020 survey data representing the Finnish-speaking population in mainland Finland. Descriptive methods, median regression, and interaction terms are used for the analyses. These results indicate that poorer affective well-being is positively associated with a stronger affective fear of crime in Finland. Furthermore, feelings of unsafety and generalised distrust were found to moderate the considered association. This indicates that the perceived risk of victimisation facilitates the association between poorer affective well-being and stronger affective fear of crime in Finland.

Space of lifestyles in Finland, 2007 and 2018: Continuity, change, and the role of online activities and everyday participation

Ossi Sirkka — 2024-12-20

Has the space of lifestyles—a relational, holistic model of cultural stratification in a society—changed in recent years, marked by the rise of digitalization and social media? Does a better coverage of mundane “everyday participation”, besides conventional cultural indicators, change our view of the space of lifestyles? To tackle these questions, we construct the space of lifestyles in Finland for 2007 and 2018 using two repeated surveys, applying multiple correspondence analysis. With identical sets of indicators, we project observations from 2018 to the model of 2007 as supplementary individuals, which allows us to examine gradual changes in the space. We then build a more comprehensive model for 2018 that includes indicators of online and everyday practices not available in 2007. Measured identically, the results show considerable stability, whereas adding the impact of online and everyday practices subjected the space of lifestyles to profound change.

“They have their rules” - Digital stories offer guidance for employment services

Hanna Kirjavainen — 2024-12-20

This study analyses the stories of the experiences of 18 highly educated migrants with public employment services in Finland. This contributes to the discussion about the value of employment services by exploring 1) how it responds to the needs of educated migrants, 2) how educated migrants experience encounters with employment officers, and 3) what kind of services educated migrants themselves think would help them. The results reveal a lack of encounters and regard for one’s personal situation, as well as deficiencies in professionalism and customer service orientation. The stories in this article portray the employment office mainly as a bureaucratic and faceless apparatus, controlling and sanctioning its subjects. The contribution of this article lies in (1) providing new insights into the understudied topic of highly educated migrants’ experiences of the employment office, (2) offering an example of a user experience analysis and (3) helping develop employment services in collaboration with international talents.

Cybercrime target exposure, suitability, personality, and victimization: A longitudinal approach

Marko Mikkola — 2024-12-20

This study utilizes the routine activity theory as a framework to examine if workplace social media usage, compulsive internet use, online aggression and personality traits are related to an elevated risk of cybervictimization. We leveraged 7-wave longitudinal survey data from the Finnish working population (N = 650) and employed multilevel, mixed-effects logistic regression to analyze fixed effects of in-between variables. Our findings reveal that target exposure, suitability and the personality trait of openness had a positive relationship with cybervictimization. We observed fluctuations in cybervictimization across the observation points, although the temporal pattern did not follow a linear trajectory. The results underscore the importance of longitudinal studies on victimization and advocate additional research on cybervictimization within the working population. This study also emphasizes the need for the integration of established theories to augment our comprehension of the fundamental factors influencing cybervictimization.

Covid, financial stress and mental wellbeing of Finnish adolescents

Mikael Nygård — 2024-12-20

This article investigates the link between perceptions of financial stress and the mental well-being of Finnish adolescents during the second year of the Covid-19 pandemic. Did adolescents perceive an increase in financial stress and a deterioration of their mental wellbeing during the beginning of the pandemic? Moreover, to what extent can perceptions of increased financial strain explain experiences of mental wellbeing, and what protecting factors mitigate this association? We use unique national survey data collected among Finnish 12–17-year-olds in 2021 (N=1102) for answering our research questions. We found only a moderate increase in financial stress but a considerable deterioration in perceived mental wellbeing. Moreover, financial stress and mental wellbeing were negatively correlated, even if this correlation was moderated by social, psychological as well as school-related factors.

Sexual harassment leads to economic inequality

Johanna Rickne — 2024-12-20

This study examines sexual and gender-based harassment by employees and managers in the Swedish labour market. Using data from the work Environment Survey, we show that women are subjected to this kind of harassment to a greater extent than men, but that both men and women are more vulnerable than the opposite sex when they are in the minority in their workplace. As wages are generally higher in male-dominated workplaces, this means that women are more vulnerable to harassment in workplaces with high wages, and men in workplaces with low wages. The study finds evidence that these patterns increase economic inequality in two ways. First, one survey experiment shows that harassment discourages women and men from seeking employment where their gender is in the minority. Secondly, an analysis of how people switch workplaces over time shows that harassment leads to women leaving relatively well-paid workplaces with a large proportion of men, in favour of lower-paid workplaces with fewer male colleagues.