Browsing by Author "Eskelinen, Eva"

During its history China has seen growing numbers of immigration of its population to other countries in hopes of increased opportunities abroad or when returning to China. Finland on the other hand has shifted from an emigration country into an immigration country in the last few decades with immigration numbers increasing. The growing immigration flows and decreasing birth rates have become a source of discussion and dispute. As both China and Finland face similar demographic changes, the migration tendencies along with policies relating to migration and discussion and attitudes surrounding them, have been in change. With Finland’s decreasing fertility rate and workforce, the demand for skilled workers remains high and is expected to keep increase further. As a country with a good reputation for high language skills in English for a non-Anglophone country, peaceful society and good enough reputation in the academic field, this study aims to reflect the experience of ten Chinese and Hong Kong students to previous research while highlighting the possible issues for retaining these Chinese students, and furthermore international students and to some extent, highly skilled migrants in Finland. The socio-political environment in Finland, together with consideration to migration theories, the environment was explained to the extent allowed by this thesis. The case study on Chinese and Hong Kong students was correlated to previous studies on the topic to give a reflection of the lived experience of these individuals in the contemporary setting and how well it correlates with the findings of the previous studies from five or more years ago. The socio-political environment in which Finland is in now, as understood through media, and has been in the past when it comes to the topic of immigration and integration will be evaluated and correlated to the new government plan (2023) with the findings reflected on for a better understanding on the possible challenges that they might bring. The findings of this study show that for these Chinese and Hong Kong students the main concerns for staying in Finland after graduation concern language abilities, employment possibilities, and the social and political environment. While there have been active attempts to increase language learning possibilities by higher education institutions in Finland, it was found that many degree programs don’t allocate enough room and encouragement for language learning. For employment possibilities the main concerns were related to the forming of networks and mastering one of the national languages, Finnish or Swedish, as well as the possible changes to residence permit as proposed by the new government plan. When it comes to the political environment the new government plan has caused much worry for both work-based and study-based migrants and thus decreasing the change of these students staying in Finland after graduation.