Browsing by Author "Lahtinen, Krista"

Objectives. The objective of this thesis was to find out how often Finns have guests in their home that are relatives and visitors who are other acquaintances. My goal was also to analyze if there are any differences between men and women or people from different age groups on what they do with their guests. The two main research questions of this study were “How often does a Finnish household host guests?” and “What do the hosts do with their guests?” It is known that in Finland it is typical to drink coffee and socialize with your guests. Previous studies show that women are more active than men in visiting each other. Methods. The research material of this study was an open online survey that was conducted by Helsingin Sanomat in the autumn of 2016. The questionnaire was answered by 13 438 people. Three questions from the 42 in the questionnaire were selected to be the data for this study. The research was carried out as a quantitative research and SPSS program was used in analyzing the data. A statistical analysis was made of each of the variables from the data, followed by either t-test or chi-squared test depending on which one was applicable. Test results. According to the test results about half of Finns have guests at their home at least once a month and over 90% have guests over to their house at least few times a year. Women host relatives as guests more often than men. The difference in hosting non-relatives is not statistically significant. When Finns have guests over to their house, they typ-ically socialize and eat with them. Around one third also told they had cooked and drank al-cohol with their guests. There is hardly any difference between men and women in what the hosts do with their guests. However, between different age groups it was found that the old-er the host is, the less they do things that require physical activity. In the future it would be beneficial to study regional differences in visiting culture in Finland, since differences have been found in past studies.