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 comprehensive 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 population-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 networks 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 capital factors that characterize Swedish speaking Finns.
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November 28, 2025
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Articles
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| Keywords | Finland, friendship, kinship, linguistic groups, social networks |
| How to Cite |
Tanskanen, A. O., Danielsbacka, M., & Rotkirch, A. (2025). Kinship and Friendship Networks among Swedish and Finnish Speaking Finns. Nordic Yearbook of Population Research, 58, 59-76. https://doi.org/10.23979/nypr.161271
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Copyright (c) 2025 Antti Olavi Tanskanen, Mirkka Danielsbacka, Anna Rotkirch  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Authors who publish with the Nordic Yearbook of Population Research agree to the following terms:
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