Taina Jääskeläinen

Londitudinal Data on Working Conditions

FSD collections now include Finnish Working Life Barometers which provide an excellent resource for tracking long-term changes in working life in Finland. The main aim of the survey series is to investigate employee opinion on psychosocial working environment, working conditions, job satisfaction, employment security, training and development, work demands, working capacity, sickness absences, conflicts, bullying and discrimination at work.

Annual data collection began in 1992 and the most recent survey archived was fielded in 2010. Respondents are employees working at least ten hours a week.

Long time span, repeated questions

Data from the survey series can be used, among other things, to monitor how periods of economic recession affect workplaces and work climate. There was a severe recession in Finland during 1990-1993 and another, though less a severe one, starting in 2008. Were staff numbers affected and how, did conflicts in the workplace increase, did the proportion of respondents who thought their job was insecure change?

Likewise, is would be possible to investigate whether discrimination against women or people of other ethnic origins has increased or decreased over the years, whether there is a trend towards local bargaining, or whether the employer size affects working conditions. Many questions have been repeated over the waves, allowing longitudinal study of a wide variety of work-related phenomena.

Data available from the data archive

The surveys are commissioned by the Ministry of Employment and the Economy, collected by Statistics Finland and disseminated by FSD for research and study purposes. To facilitate their use for non-Finnish researchers, the data archive has already translated some surveys into English (the years 2010, 2007, 2004, 2000, 1995 and 1992). More are translated by request, free of charge.

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