Rural young people in regional development---the case of Finland in 1970-2000

In view of the crucial role of young people in society, especially as far as the future of sparsely populated rural areas is concerned, an analysis is made of absolute and relative changes in the 15-24-year age cohort in Finland and their effects on demographic and regional structure, employing GIS methods. The main material for this consists of georeferenced population data based on 1*1 km grid squares produced by Statistics Finland for the period 1970-2000. An example is taken of one rural municipality where the georeferenced data were supplemented with qualitative interview material obtained in 1999. The results show that the number and proportion of young people in the population of Finland have declined since 1970, although not consistently, at the same time as the total population has continued to increase. The dichotomy between the sparsely populated rural areas and the built-up areas has been accentuated by a distortion of the population structure and gender ratio, in that the young people, and particularly young women, have been inclined to move into the growth centres and to the more densely populated areas in general. The georeferenced data clearly point to a worsening regional imbalance in the areal distribution of population in Finland, although the interview material suggests that the young people still living in the countryside do not regard their position as hopeless but are prepared to weigh up their future on the basis of the alternatives open to them.