This paper examines how older unemployed people cope with unemployment through temporal identity work. By temporal identity work, we refer to identity work that takes place at junctions between past, present, and future working lives and which relates to these tenses as a part of identity construction.The paper is based on 30 semi-structured interviews with jobseekers aged 50+ living in a region that has undergone deindustrialization and suffers from high unemployment rates. In the interview material, we identified three main types of identity work: Relying on the past, renewing oneself, and tweaking one’s working identity. This article identifies ‘respectably unemployed’ as the cultural construction in relation to which identity work is done in a society that values paid work highly. The paper contributes to the literature on age and unemployment by enhancing the understanding of older jobseekers’ identity work as a contextually embedded temporal process.

Artikkelimme käsittelee Suomeen muuttaneiden pakolaistaustaisten naisten identiteettien rakentumista työelämäpuheessa. Näkökulmamme on intersektionaalinen: olemme kiinnostuneita identiteettien rakentumisesta erilaisten sosiaalisten kategorioiden leikkauskohdissa (esim. Adib & Guerrier 2003; Essers & Benschop 2007). Työelämä-fokuksemme rikastuttaa Suomessa tehtyä maahanmuuttajia koskevaa tutkimusta, joka on usein keskittynyt yleisempiin kysymyksiin, esimerkiksi rasismin kohtaamiseen tai diasporassa elämiseen. Artikkelimme yhdistää etnologian ja organisaatioiden tutkimuksen näkökulmia. Artikkelin aineisto koostuu Työväenmuseo Werstaan hankkeissa 2006–2007 tuotetuista haastatteluista sekä haastatteluaineistojen perusteella kirjoitetuista, internetissä oppimateriaalina julkaistuista tarinoista. Tässä tutkimuksessa keskitymme Euroopan ulkopuolelta pakolaistaustalla Suomeen tulleiden naisten identiteettien rakentumiseen ja tällä perusteella olemme poimineet aineistosta viiden eri-ikäisen naisen haastattelut. Teoreettinen viitekehyksemme rakentuu identiteettityö ja intersektionaalisuus -käsitteiden leikkauskohtaan. Kartoitamme miten haastateltavien työelämään liittyviä intersektionaalisia identiteettejä rakennetaan monivaiheisesti. Tutkimusmenetelmä on kehittämämme intersektionaalinen tulkintatasojen analyysi, jonka avulla pureudumme identiteettityön kerroksellisuuteen systemaattisella tavalla. Keskeistä menetelmässä on tulkintatasojen, tulkitsijoiden sekä erilaisten tulkintojen identifioiminen ja refleksiivinen paikantaminen sekä merkitysten muokkaantuminen kontekstista toiseen siirryttäessä. Työelämän kannalta keskeisiä teemoja aineistossa ovat rajattu ja vaiettu työkokemus ja osaaminen, kieli mahdollisuuksien avaajana ja lokeroijana sekä vaietut kokemukset rasismista ja moniperustaisesta syrjinnästä. Aineistossa haastateltavat esitettiin vahvasti maahanmuuttajuuden kautta, mitä haastateltavat itse pyrkivät osittain vastustamaan. Kysymme millä tavoin pakolaistaustaiset naiset esitetään ja minkälaisista puolista vaietaan.

Our paper addresses the ways in which highly educated immigrant women encounter and experience employment services in Finland. This qualitative study examines a group of women who have experience with both governmentally funded Employment and Economic Centre services (TE Services) and services offered by the third sector. The research question in this paper is as follows: How do the employment services support the capabilities of immigrant women job seekers trying to find work? Our analysis is inspired by Sen’s capability approach and Nussbaum’s concept of combined capabilities. The first empirical section addresses women with a foreign background as job seekers and their internal capabilities. We look at the enabling factors and hurdles faced by highly educated immigrant women trying to enter the job market due to their gender and age. In the second empirical section, we analyse how the combined capabilities are constructed through contacts with employment services.

PurposeThis study identifies how self-employed older women experience and represent self-integrity – an element and source of meaningfulness – in their work, and how these experiences are intertwined with gendered ageing.Design/methodology/approachThe authors used thematic analysis, influenced by an intersectional lens, to scrutinise qualitative data generated during a development project, with ten over 55-year-old self-employed women in Finland.FindingsThe study reveals three dominant practices of self-integrity at work: “Respecting one's self-knowledge”, “Using one's professional abilities”, and “Developing as a professional”. Older age was mostly experienced and represented as a characteristic that deepened or strengthened the practices and experiences of self-integrity at work. However, being an older woman partly convoluted that. Self-integrity as a self-employed woman was repeatedly experienced and represented in contrast to the male norm of entrepreneurship.Originality/valueThe authors contribute to the literature on gender and entrepreneurship by highlighting the processual dimensions – how integrity with self is experienced, created and sustained, and how being an older woman relates to self-integrity in self-employment. The results show a nuanced interplay between gender and age: Age and gender both constrain and become assets for older women in self-employment through older women's experiences of self-integrity.

In October 2020, Finland's Prime Minister Sanna Marin appeared in the Finnish fashion magazine Trendi wearing a black blazer with a plunging neckline and no top underneath, which caused an uproar in the social media (see Odom 2020). Her outfit choice was branded 'inappropriate' for someone in a top political position. In the article accompanying the photograph, Marin explained that she usually tends to look the same; she wears the same kind of clothing and has the same hairstyle in order to avoid discussion about her appearance. She knows that women's appearance is a constant subject of discussion and criticism, and her choice of appearance is a political statement. (Peltola 2020.) Her typical outfit consists of a black tailored suit with trousers and a black or white shirt, which is a 'standard uniform' for a politician. As studies of parliamentary representation from the perspectives of gender studies and performance studies, for example, have demonstrated, institutional power also operates through performative acts such as modes of behaviour, norms of dress and other institution-specific cultures (see e.g. Rai & Johnson 2014). Institutional parliamentary cultures are usually based on a gendered hierarchy that favours men (Lovenduski 2014), of which the dress code of black or dark suit is a good example: it indicates traditional male attributes of power, authority and confidence. The reason why Marin's and women politicians' appearance is a constant topic of discussion is that they draw attention to the hidden expectations that a politician and a prime minister is a particular kind of man (cf. Lovenduski 2014, 19).The articles of this theme issue of Ethnologia Fennica (2/2021) discuss the politics of dress and appearance. They analyse the role of dress and fashion in expressing, formulating and contesting various political ideas and ideologies, social norms, cultural ideals and social statuses.In her article "Behind the scenes. The Mari teacher's wardrobe in Central Russia", Ildikó Lehtinen discusses teacher's attire as a political phenomenon in the context of the Mari people, a Finno-Ugric minority living in Central