[Luomu]

Weekly Finnish magazine Suomen Kuvalehti runs an article every few years on high status jobs in Finland. The professions are rated by their relative appreciation among the Finns, both male and females. The most recent list of 380 professions is from 2010; as you may note, it's good to be a M.D. in Finland (and everywhere else)! In fact most of professions in the top 30 are related to the health care business.

If you do not count doctors or firemen as public sector jobs, the most rated job from that field is the police. However no one likes politicians, people checking if your television license has been paid nor car dealers (all in the 300s). "Old school" jobs like carpenters, farmers and things connected to the foresty business are rated to places 50-70. If you are working at consulting (+300), it's usually better to state a more specific field (e.g. environmental jobs are in +90).


1. Surgeon
2. Specialist (M.D)
3. Doctor (M.D)
4. Fireman
5. Chief Physician
6. Neurologist
7. Optometrist
8. Midwife
9. Dentist
10. Nurse, pilot
[...]
16. Judge
[...]
29. Entrepreneur
[...]
47. Architect
[...]
55. Carpenter
[...]
58. Farmer
[...]
148. Author
[...]
335. Dancer
[...]
352. Broker
[...]
380. Door-to-door salesman

[Luomu]

Let's brake down the recent list to those professions appreciated by the genders more than the opposite one. Women generally appreciate more gynecologist, psychiatrist, psychologist and lawyers, while men appreciate manly jobs like butchers and explosive experts.

The same list from 1991 is also interesting as it allows one to see the loss of appreciation by the politicians and other top level public sector jobs. Doctors were already then at the top but police and farmers were far behind at +100. Since 1991 Finland has had two major economic crises and I think these have made also a major contribution to the appreciation of the manual workers.

[Luomu]

Compare the previous lists to this Finnish structure of earnings from 2011. Half of the professions on the list are on the high end of the scale but the rest are either average or less paid occupations that in average. It is also interesting to notice that the salary of people (in € per month) in their 40s starts to lower as they got older. Maybe it is because they are too lazy to do anything to upgrade their knowledge & skills?