Tekijät

• Finnish Business and Policy Forum (EVA)

Asiasanat

businesses, conditions of employment, economic competition, economic doctrines, employment, labour and employment, labour market, occupational life, strikes, unemployment, values

Sisällön kuvaus

The study charted Finnish people's values and attitudes. The themes of the Autumn 2019 survey included employment, working life, the job market, labour conditions and entrepreneurship.

First, the respondents were presented with a variety of attitudinal statements concerning, among other topics, state-owned enterprises, conditions of unemployment benefits, meaningfulness of work, collective labour agreements, the right to strike, wealth and the market economy, the pension system, and entrepreneurship.

Next, it was charted what factors made employment meaningful to the respondents. Several questions examined opinions on agreeing upon labour conditions locally between the employer and employee instead of collective labour agreements, and views were charted on the effects that local agreement would have on wages, labour conditions and the economy. The respondents opinions were also asked on the acceptability of different actions to take in the future in order to maintain the sustainability of the pension system.

It was also charted whether the respondents thought there was too little, the right amount or too much competition in various industries. The respondents also shared their attitudes towards different economic systems and ideologies. Pertaining to business, the respondents rated the importance of different objectives of large enterprises (e.g. increasing value to stockholders, producing high-quality goods/services, increasing employment, paying taxes diligently, etc.), and assessed whether these objectives were being met to a sufficient extent in the operations of large corporations. Finally, the respondents' views on Finland's EU and EMU membership were examined, and they were asked whether they would vote for or against EU membership if a referendum was held at the time of the survey and if they had voted for or against the membership in 1994.

Background variables included, among others, gender, age group, region of residence, size of the respondent's municipality of residence, education, employment sector, economic activity and occupational status, political party preference (which party the respondent would vote for), self-perceived social class, and household gross income.