The Network Generation
In Finland and Canada, when the network generation was young, their lives still had many features that are commonly associated with the old, agrarian, poor, and rural way of life.
However, after reaching adulthood, they lived completely differently: in a rich, modern, and urban way. That is why this generation, with one foot in the country and the other in the city, has been called ‘the transition generation’ or ‘the hinge generation’ (Karisto 2005, 39–41). This phenomenon is common to both Finland and Canada.Despite the great and rapid post-war modernisation of Finnish society, many of the values discussed above are also familiar to this generation. Family, health, friends, religion, and the environment are important issues to this generation. According to the interviews, however, there was a specific area where changes could be seen. There was an overall collapse of belief in ‘work’ and its overwhelming meaning for a decent life-course or the good life. This was a piece or fragment of the totality that was separated from the other aspects. It is difficult to say if this resulted from the overall dispersal of the labour markets, specific negative experiences in the labour history of the informants, or both. The recession of the 1990s in Finland and the structural crisis in Thunder Bay in the 2000s each had a similar effect.
A man, who owned a small enterprise and farmed a tiny ‘croft’ at the same time, had been born on the farm and had been accustomed to hard work all his life. When discussing the future, it turned out that something had negatively affected his formerly strident work ethic:
| Interviewer: | You run your business and the farm at the same time. It means long days, doesn’t it? |
| Informant: | I have learnt that this world is never ready. |
| Interviewer: | Do you take it easier now? |
| Informant: | I could work around the clock, but I don’t … I used to work too much, but not any more … I have learned my lesson. |
| Interviewer: | How long do you still aim to work? Ten, fifteen years? |
| Informant: | I don’t know, if someone wants to buy the firm, we could sell it immediately. (M1949, Fi) |
Another middle-aged male Finnish informant regarded hard work quite sceptically and preferred leisure time more. His work history included unemployment and temporary lay-off periods in his later years:
| Interviewer: | If you now think about work, how important is it to you as a basic meaning of life, and what has it given to you? |
| Informant: | Could it be described as a series … working is a series of forced activities caused by hunger. If I take it more seriously, a man can do much more than just work … I prefer leisure time more. (M1967, Fi) |
The middle-aged immigrants in Thunder Bay looked at their own work history critically. They saw a clear connection between hard, isolated work and family relations:
The normal life of an immigrant family was difficult to organise. In some cases, both parents were working all week in the bush. The children were often on their own without proper care. The poverty was hard to bear, and alcohol and other problems were common. The youngest generation is having problems with drug use, too.
(M1960s, Thunder Bay, Canada)
The interviews with the informants created a strong impression that the other pillars of the ideal of the good life had withstood the changes in society well, and this manifested in the various experiences of the informants. The interviewer guides the following conversation, but the Finnish informant echoes her ideas:
| Interviewer: | If I were to ask what makes a man happy, how would you answer? |
| Informant: | What to say to that? Maybe this kind of peaceful family life and children, and a suitable amount of work, and a salary that is large enough… |
| Interviewer: | And what about health issues? |
| Informant: | It is important too, oh yes. Maybe it is the biggest one. (M1949, Fi) |
It was interesting that the soft family values were underlined both by the female and male informants of the network generation. Health issues belonged to this group of things to appreciate. In late industrialised society, ecological values were considered important, too. For the emigrants, the changed environment generated feelings of estrangement and homesickness. A woman who had lived in Canada for over ten years used the loss of nature as an example of making the wrong decision by emigrating:
It took a long time to adapt to living here. The first year was extremely difficult. Nature has always been very important to me and I used to walk in the forests in the home country, and here too. Even the birds were different here, like all other things.
(F1960s, Thunder Bay, Canada)
The life of the network generation has been tightly intertwined with the development of the welfare state. The basic social values adopted by the historical-political processes of welfare state formation are largely accepted by this generation. It is no wonder that they have been able to benefit from most of the fruits of the social security system; the developed infrastructure of housing, transport, and leisure time; and the enormously expanded educational opportunities. Whereas members of the nationalistic generation mourned their lack of education and consequent opportunities for social mobility, their descendants have been able to use these resources to reap the social and economic benefits. Although it is true that access to higher education remained closed to the children of the labouring classes, the increased opportunities in secondary and vocational education guaranteed growth in the standard of living for most. Nearly every informant in the Päijät-Häme district had some experience of vocational schooling. Similar life histories were also typical in Thunder Bay.