A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal

Kinship and Friendship Networks among Swedish and Finnish Speaking Finns




AuthorsTanskanen, Antti O.; Danielsbacka, Mirkka; Rotkirch, Anna

Publisherthe Population Research Institute of the Family Federation of Finland (Väestöliitto)

Publication year2025

Journal: Nordic Yearbook of Population Research

Volume58

First page 59

Last page76

eISSN3087-7733

Publication's open availability at the time of reportingOpen Access

Publication channel's open availability Open Access publication channel

Web address https://journal.fi/nypr/article/view/161271/119351

Self-archived copy’s web addresshttps://research.utu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/506182731


Abstract

Prior research has indicated that in Finland Swedish speakers have more social capital than Finnish speakers in terms of social participation, social support, friendship ties and trust. However, no com-prehensive study has assessed the size of close kinship and friendship networks among both linguistic groups. We compare the size of kinship and friendship networks in these language groups using popu-lation-based surveys of baby boomers, aged 68–73 years, and their adult children, aged 19–56 years at the time of data collection. Overall, baby boomers reported larger close networks than did their adult children. Swedish speakers reported slightly more close relatives than Finnish speakers did in the older (6.9 vs. 6.1) and the younger generations (4.7 vs. 4.6) but the differences were not statistically significant. However, Swedish speakers reported on average significantly larger close friendship net-works than Finnish speakers in both the older (7.4 vs. 5.3) and younger (5.6 vs. 4.2) generations. The differences in close friendship networks remained significant after controlling for sex, age, and other socio-demographic factors. Our results suggest that having more close friends is among the social cap-ital factors that characterize Swedish speaking Finns.


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Funding information in the publication
This study was funded by the Society of Swedish Literature in Finland for the FinNät project, the Stra-tegic Research Council at the Academy of Finland for the NetResilience consortium (grant numbers 364371 and 364382), and the Academy of Finland for the KinExposure project (grant number 338869).


Last updated on 09/01/2026 01:06:02 PM