In 2018, moving to Finland seemed like a no-brainer. One year earlier I had met my Finnish partner while working away in Oulu. My adopted home of Italy, where I had lived for 10 years, had recently elected a coalition government with the far-right Matteo Salvini as interior minister, while my native UK had voted for Brexit. Given Finland’s status as a beacon of progressive values, I boarded a plane, leaving my lecturing job and friends behind.
Things have gone well. My partner and I both have stable teaching contracts, me at a university where my mostly Finnish colleagues are on the whole friendlier than the taciturn cliche that persists of Finns.
Notwithstanding this, I feel a sense of unease as Finland's prime minister Petteri Orpo's rightwing coalition government has set about slashing welfare and capping public sector pay. Even on two teachers' salaries my partner and I have felt the sting of inflation as goods have increased by 20% in three years.
Those worse off than us face food scarcity. A survey found 25% of students struggling to afford food, while reductions in housing benefit mean tenants are being forced to move or absorb the shortfall in rent payments.
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