U.S. Census data of Finnish and Swedish ancestry
1990 U.S. Census data of Americans with Finnish ancestry, Swedish ancestry, and all Americans.
| FINNISH | SWEDISH | ALL U.S . | |
| Poverty - Families | 5.5% | 4.5% | 10.0% |
| Poverty - Unrelated Individuals | 20.9% | 17.3% | 24.2% |
| Poverty - Persons | 8.3% | 6.7% | 13.1% |
| Per capita income ($) | $15,673 | $17,720 | $14,420 |
| Unemployed | 5.7% | 4.2% | 6.3% |
| Divorced | 8.5% | 8.2% | 8.3% |
| Bachelor’s Degree or higher | 24.2% | 27.4% | 20.3% |
| Native Born (in the states) | 95.2% | 98.0% | 92.1% |
Interesting facts. Swedes are more productive than Finns? What difference is there between these ethnic groups?
Did the Swedes get to USA earlier than Finns, hogging the best spots or what? Or did the Finns move to different states than Swedes did, and therefore the surrounding area would affect per capita income?
Or are we just so shitty and lazy compared to Swedes?
Comment by iJusten — Tue, Oct 31st, 2006 @ 4:09 pm
Did the Swedes get to USA earlier than Finns
I was wondering the same thing, I’d guess that has a lot to do with it.
Comment by Phil — Tue, Oct 31st, 2006 @ 4:28 pm
My 8th grade history book had a hypothesis that the reason why swedish settlers got better jobs/ managed better was due to the fact that it was easier for the swedes to learn english than it was for the finns. Hence, it was also easier for the swedes to get better jobs as they knew the language.
Comment by Kez0nat0r — Tue, Oct 31st, 2006 @ 5:04 pm
There are approximately 6 times as many native born Americans of Swedish descent than of Finnish. With the foreign born, the ratio is only 2.6:1, suggesting that indeed the Swedish have been there longer.
I can’t find the information that would tell how far back this “ancestry” is defined. It should be noted, though, that many of the Swedish immigrants of 19th century (I think) were descendants of Finns that moved to Sweden in the 17th century.
Comment by MariaT — Tue, Oct 31st, 2006 @ 5:13 pm
Average IQ in Sweden is a few points higher than in Finland. While meaningless from the point of view of individuals or extended families or even villages or very small towns, at a national level such a difference may have visible consequences - particularly at the tails of the normal distribution. On a per capita basis, the ethnic Swedish population of the world has produced more geniuses than the ethnic Finnish population, while the ethnic Finnish population has produced a larger number social pathologies.
I’m not saying that this is the case. I’m only saying that it’s a viable alternative hypothesis one must disprove to narrow the set of possible explanations down to the others that have been proposed before. Clearly, Phil’s data show that the American-Swedish population has performed consistently slightly better than the American-Finnish population - just like in the old world.
Both ethnic stocks have, however, done relatively well in America.
Comment by Markku — Tue, Oct 31st, 2006 @ 5:30 pm
It’s also interesting to note that a lot of Finnish people settled in Michigan… maybe they lost their jobs when the car industry declined?
Just a random thought.
Comment by Anonymous — Tue, Oct 31st, 2006 @ 6:34 pm
Markku (#5): Couldn’t you also say that an earlier access to good living standards and comprehensive eduvation would be a significant factor in both the facts that the average Swedish IQ is a bit higher and that the country has produced more geniuses per capita? Sweden, after all, has been a “rich” country several decades longer than Finland.
Apart from that, I think MariaT:s point (#4) is good. How is “ancestry” defined, and how back in time? How often is “Finnish ancestry” attached to Finnish immigrants only since 1809 (or later) and Swedish ancestry before that point (as citizens of the Swedish Empire)? It is well known that a great amount of early “Swedish” settlers were actually ethnic Finns, even though their names were twisted in a Swedish form as per Swedish law.
Comment by Drakon — Tue, Oct 31st, 2006 @ 7:03 pm
But there was never such a law. That many people changed their names because they saw it as a good career move is another matter.
Comment by Erik — Tue, Oct 31st, 2006 @ 8:37 pm
Indeed, and even following the Fennoman movement, some Swedish speakers (who had always been Swedish speakers) changed their family’s language to Finnish and took Finnish family names… so it is probably a factor that can be largely discounted.
Comment by JG — Tue, Oct 31st, 2006 @ 8:42 pm
Apparently, most Finns emigrated around 1900, and many towns, here in Finland, were emptied during that timeperiod. Interestingly, a disproportionately high number of Finns became involved in Socialist movements in the United States.
I think Swedes had the advantage of being in the US longer, but they also followed a completely different path.
Comment by Kristian (in Espoo) — Tue, Oct 31st, 2006 @ 9:24 pm
Erik, JG: No, there was no law against Finnish names as such, but as the official language was Swedish and the clergy used the language, your ordinary Antti Antinpoika and Heikki Heikinpoika habitually became Anders Andersson and Henrik Henriksson in the official books (births, deaths, tax records etc.) Thus many a non-Finnish observer can easily confuse ethnically Finnish and Swedish people in official 16th, 17th or 18th century records.
Comment by Drakon — Wed, Nov 1st, 2006 @ 12:09 am
Finnish and Swedish colonists have arrived in USA since 17th century. In fact, the first Europeans who settled in what is now present day Philadelphia happened to be Swedes and Finns.
Majority of Finnish immigrants, however, didn’t arrive until late 19th century. From 1870–1929, some 400,000 people left Finland for USA. 80% of them came from Vaasa and Southern Ostrobothnia and were from rather poor conditions. AFAIK they tended to often live in communities and as a result didn’t always assimilate into the culture that easily. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Swedes were able to learn the English language more easily and were generally-speaking better educated (Finland was hopelessly backwards nation, after all) .
Comment by Toni — Wed, Nov 1st, 2006 @ 2:21 am
Average IQ in Sweden is a few points higher than in Finland.
You shouldn’t believe all that racist crap the PM’s daddy produces. Then again in this particular case there may be something to it. In the 1860s there was a severe shortage of food, probably over 10% of the population died of hunger and resulting diseases. As late as in the 1920s people still could die of hunger in remote areas. Malnutrition again hinders normal development. People will, well, become less intelligent (a saying like “people have always been the same” is, in other words, not true). That doesn’t mean that the children of these “poorly developed” immigrants would have inherited the low intelligence, but perhaps their starting point was a bit worse than that of the Swedish immigrants.
On the other hand, a much more likely explanation has to do with social factors. Finns were often latecomers working mostly in low-paying jobs, in mines or forest industry - and building sky-scrapers I’ve been told. The best farming land was often already been taken. And they were often communists, not exactly the right attitude to have in a new country. At the same time many Swedes had already settled and become middle class, a few even wealthy. And there were much more of them. There is no question which group had better networks, which are pretty essential for any group of immigrants.
Comment by T — Wed, Nov 1st, 2006 @ 1:30 pm
Once again
http://www.genealogia.fi/emi/art/article298fe.htm
Comment by ihqubeibe — Wed, Nov 1st, 2006 @ 7:39 pm
“Couldn’t you also say that an earlier access to good living standards and comprehensive eduvation would be a significant factor in both the facts that the average Swedish IQ is a bit higher and that the country has produced more geniuses per capita? Sweden, after all, has been a “rich†country several decades longer than Finland.”
That’s possible.
Comment by Markku — Thu, Nov 2nd, 2006 @ 1:03 am
“You shouldn’t believe all that racist crap the PM’s daddy produces. Then again in this particular case there may be something to it.”
Why in this particular case? What about the many other cases where the gap is several times larger and also the real world differences?
Comment by Markku — Thu, Nov 2nd, 2006 @ 1:06 am
Markku - http://www.hs.fi/kotimaa/artikkeli/Joka+viides+turkulaisnuori+uskoo+rotujen+%C3%A4lykkyyseroihin/1135222532101
http://www.hs.fi/keskustelu/thread.jspa?threadID=35244
“Joka viides turkulaisnuori uskoo rotujen älykkyyseroihin”
proving yet again, that finland is so much more socially backward than we give it credit for.
when you are capable of believing that the average IQ in sweden is ‘a couple points’ higher than in Finland, then you are also capable of believing that races have inherently different intelligence levels.
funny how this is not discussed in other western, developed countries anymore, but i keep hearing of it from Finland.
Perhaps Swedish immigrants did better than Finnish ones because they weren’t occupying themselves with being so damn bigoted?
There are millions of factors that can answer these questions. You need to ask yourself why the first explanation that jumped to your mind was that Swedes are more intelligent than Finns, that’s the real question.
Comment by racists need to be shot — Thu, Nov 2nd, 2006 @ 3:34 am
To me those statistics don’t really say anything. The change is so minimal.
Comment by Boyle — Thu, Nov 2nd, 2006 @ 9:53 am
Dear Mr. racists need to be shot,
being called by a racist by someone like you is a badge of intellectual honor these days.
Modern zeitgeist is very much against discrimination based on race or ancestry, which is quite right. Ancestry is something an individual cannot help, which is why discriminating individuals based on their ancestry is morally questionable.
But the problem is that anti-racism tends to be enforced by assorted zealots, aspiring totalitarians, idiots, demagogical identity politicians, and profiteers.
Comment by Markku — Thu, Nov 2nd, 2006 @ 3:00 pm
So if Finland have higher GDP per capita… it means.. that we… are… more intelligent than those who have less GDP per capita than we have?
No?? Why not? That would be nice because we already have higher GDP per capita than Sweden!
“funny how this is not discussed in other western, developed countries anymore, but i keep hearing of it from Finland.” Oh really? When PISA thing was going on early -04 in Finland that was all about how great school system was but in foreign countries (Germany, USA etc.) it was more about national IQ this and racial IQ that.
Comment by Mysterious figure from shadows — Thu, Nov 2nd, 2006 @ 4:03 pm
A problem with the IQ discussion is that IQ deniers seem to tacitly assume that IQ to have predictive power in important real world matters it would have to be 100% heritable.
Comment by Markku — Thu, Nov 2nd, 2006 @ 4:22 pm
About the definition of the ancestry:
It’s the census. They just ask “What’s your ancestry?” I found this image file in the same directory as the data files. It looks like it’s a part of the census form.
Comment by --- — Thu, Nov 2nd, 2006 @ 7:33 pm
I mostly agree with Boyle (#18). The difference in income etc. between the people of Finnish and Swedish ancestry is very small, and if we can ascertain the fact that the bulk of the ancesters from Sweden arrived earlier than from Finland the rest sort of works itself out much in the way T outlined above (#13).
Large scale movement from both countries to the US started in earnest only in the 1860s mainly aided by widespread crop failure and famine in both countries. It is fairly obvious, at least, that by the time Finnish mass-immigration to America peaked in 1900-1914, a considerably larger number of Swedes had already moved there. For example in the year 1900 the Swedes were the third largest immigrant community in Chicago, which as a “Swedish city” only lost to Stockholm in terms of population. By the turn of the century there was already some 600 000 Swedes in the US, when the number of Finns was at that time only closing 200 000.
The total number of Finns moving to North America in 1850-1930 was around 400K and the number of Swedes around 1,3 million. In the links Phil provided we can see that the number of people claiming Finnish ancestry is only bit higher than the number of original immigrants, when as the number of people with Swedish ancestry is double the original figure. I know almost 1/3 of Finnish immigrants returned home after earning money “for the house”, and apparently the Swedes stayed in America in greater numbers… And made more Swedes.
Comment by Drakon — Thu, Nov 2nd, 2006 @ 8:36 pm
Drakon, according to this law
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5078/
in 1890 there were nearly twenty times more Swedes than Finns in the USA.
Then again, I find it hard to believe … Perhaps the lawmakers just were familiar with the race science which at the time started to classify Finns as a seperate race from the “Germanics”, or the “Aryans” as Hitler and co put it. Previously they were confused enough to think that the Finns were, sort of, semi-Swedes, and as such worthy of free entrance to the USA. Now the Finns became “semi-Mongols” - and who would like to have such people in a civilized country!
By the way, I find it rather funny when Americans - or should I say Anglo-Saxons - talk about how racist the Finns are
Comment by T — Sat, Nov 4th, 2006 @ 12:39 pm