From The Washington Post, Finland considers an aging population, immigration, and multiculturalism.
“Finns often support the idea of immigration. In an interview, Eero Huovinen, the Lutheran bishop of Helsinki (Lutheranism is Finland’s official religion), noted that the state had ‘been very careful, sometimes too much so,’ about immigration. But he added, ‘For human, moral and practical reasons, I think we have to take more people, people who are willing to work here.’
Finland is the only major European country that has generated no far-right, anti-immigrant political party. Some Finns suggest that may be because their egalitarian Lutheran values simply won’t tolerate an open appeal to racist sentiments, though they admit that such feelings exist.
Yet Finnish laws and regulations discourage immigration — as do the difficulties of the Finnish language and the long, dark winters here.”