Nordic countries faces major challenges to manage skills shortage in the labour markets. Demographic change and young people moving out contribute to an imbalance in the labour markets in the northern most north. A common Nordic labour market, with its cross-border mobility, shows that there is an extended labour market in the northern most Arctic region. This also means that if there is no available work in the local labour market, there might be an opportunity to work across the border in the neighbouring country. The common Nordic labour market has its own agreements and regulations for Nordic citizens and has roots reaching back to 1954. The revision of these regulations is a work in progress designed to facilitate cross-border mobility. From a Nordic context, the challenges presented by the common labour market relate both to the demographic character and the depopulation of the northern most peripheral regions. The biggest threat is the out-migration of young people, but challenges are also closely related to a segregated labour market.

This report is a part of the project Academic (Un) employment and Mobility in the Arctic North – A Joint Socially Responsible Approach (Academic North). The project is financed by Interreg Nord, Region Norrbotten and Lapin Liitto, and is a collaboration between Oulu University, Luleå University of Technology and the University of Tromsø. Data collection is based on available statistics and peer-reviewed publications on labour market mobility in the northern most region in Finland, Sweden and Norway.

This report has shown that there is a lack of official statistics about cross-border mobility in the three northern most regions studied in Finland, Sweden and Norway. Our findings have shown that knowledge about cross-border mobility is largely based on local knowledge, which makes this region even more visible as its own extended labour market. Experiences from this project shows that there still exist obstacles with cross-border mobility, even when working from distance in another Nordic country. This project, as well as the collaboration between the Nordic countries, also shows the importance of collaboration between the Arctic Five (Arctic5) universities in attracting and maintaining competence in the region.

Arbetslinjen ska uppmuntra till rörlighet på arbetsmarknaden för att säkra den sociala tryggheten och för att individen inte ska riskera utanförskap. I denna artikel analyseras kvinnors och mäns arbetslöshet i en social och regional kontext. Social trygghet, risk och vikten av sociala nätverk är centrala för analysen.

Intersectionality has become an object of considerable interest as an analytical tool for feminist and ethnicity scholars who use it to theorize identity and oppression (or inclusion - and exclusion processes).  Yet intersectionality, as an analytical tool, has become criticised for its lack of clear definition or defined methodology, the difficulty of operationalisation, the use of black/Asian women as typical intersectional subjects and its doubtful empirical validity. Furthermore, gender and ‘race'/ethnicity, as well as the concept of social class, are all problematic concepts and any theorising or empirical work making use of them faces the difficulty of their meaning potentially shifting in different social contexts. For theorists of gender and class politics one or other of these dimensions of inequality has tended to be taken as primary, depending on the starting point of the theorist. If writing in the tradition of labour process theory, for example, social class has been taken as the framework within which gender is considered, even if there are different schools at work within the labour process approach. The same applies for theorists of gender who tend to analyse social class from one of a number of feminist perspectives. Intersectionality, on the other hand, suggests that speaking of gender apart form social class, as well as race/ethnicity and other such ‘divisions', distorts analysis. This is because there is no such thing as gender which stands apart from other dimensions such as ethnicity and social class, just as there is no such thing as ‘race' devoid of gender and social class, and no such thing as class apart from gender and ‘race'. Seen from this perspective, ignoring the intersectional nature of these seemingly different levels of analysis suggests that we systematically overlook aspects of experience. The notion of intersectionality grew out of recognition that social structures intersect to shape social positions. This assumes that social positions and corresponding social groups are created and delineated by social structures such as norms, laws, institutions and traditions that intersect. Intersectionality has been very important in pointing out the limitations of existing theoretical approaches to gender analysis, and in explaining the political benefits of organizing intersectionally marginalized groups. Intersectionality has also been helpful in showing how thinking in terms of gender analyses that seek simply to add on dimensions such as social class and race/ethnicity are incomplete and obscure the experiences of women at the intersection of these social relations. Yet intersectionality can, it seems, to lead to an infinite regress, a non-ending process of splitting social relations until one is left with nought but individuals.  The empirical focus of this article is a group of nurses from Finland who migrated to Sweden to secure employment in their chosen occupation. With the exception of one man, the nurses were all women. The paper explores the utility of an intersectional analysis in examining the interplay of gender, ethnicity and class in order to understand the experience of these people as it unfolded in context, or location.(493 words)

Indicative bibliography

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In times of changes on the labor market turns our attention to what is called globalization and political intentions where equal opportunities to be self supporting calls for further interests. In the light of a liberal labour market discourse supporting anyone to cross national borders to work, there still exists a hidden agenda in which inclusion- and exclusion processes are articulated. In this process work migrated woman's working conditions have so far received little scholarly attention. The aim with this paper is to emphasize the work situation among nurses from northern Finland in northern Swedish hospitals. This qualitative data is based on a total of 40 semi-structured in-depth interviews collected during 2001-2002.  This paper examines a work occupation traditionally dominated by women and the intersection where inclusion and exclusion processes are taking place. In summary crossing national borders is an option in contemporary society but can not bridge every difficulty encountered, such as language, lack of social network, family arrangements among single and coupled mothers.

This Conference is organized jointly with Staffordshire University and the University of East London, and provides a forum for policy, organizational and critical sociological analyses of the human services including health, social services, housing, education and the voluntary sector. Although the theme of this year's conference concerned governance and new public management and its relationship to identities in the public and voluntary sectors, many of the papers focus on identities from different perspectives rather than having their focus on governance or new public management. It might be argued that governance and new public management have become a part of everyday life in these sectors, but the processes of change engendered raise important questions around issues of identities within human services, not least the degree to which they reflect, or conversely impact on, the discourses at work. As in the past, the aim is to provide a forum for both new and established researchers to share ideas in a supportive and scholarly environment. A wide range of contributions are encouraged, including country-specific and cross-cultural research.

This paper examines identities in women's labour migration, and seeks to uncover some of the mechanisms by which they are identified and reproduced in a regional territory viewed in a Nordic context. One key question is how identities and gender are operating in the perspective of women's work migration? A common perspective among social scientists in general is concerned with work migration paying focal attention to Diaspora cultures and transnationality. In contrast I suggest that work migration, gender and identity can be understood in its very context of a regional territory. By using an intersectional approach as analytical tool I suggest it is possible to expand our understanding of identity formation and work migration by focusing different social contexts. Drawing on evidence from qualitative data collected 2001 and 2002 in total of 24 interviews with work migrated nurses from north part of Finland to north part of Sweden, this paper indicates that ones identity as skilled labour power contributes to the decision to migrate, but cannot bridge every difficulty encountered such as symbolic and social boundaries when crossing national borders. This article argues that symbolic and social boundaries are not necessarily constructed around nationality (or a national community) as some scientists maintain, symbolic boundaries are rather constructed around symbolical meanings (including and excluding mechanisms) which becomes visible markers of an existing regional identity.