Some Facts about
Finland
MEP (Multidiciplinary European Program)
March 2011, France, Lille
Marjut Heiskanen, Laura Krekula, Sanna
Leppälä, Henna Muotka, Ninni-Ingrid Nurmos,
Jaakko Tuomi
Finland is situated between
Sweden and Russia
Population: 5.4 million
Capital: Helsinki
Currency unit: Euro
Total area 390 920 km²
Municipalities: 342
Unemployment rate, 8.2 % (Population
aged 15–24 the unemployment rate is
21.5 % )
Population by age, %
in Finland 1995-2020 (National Institute for Health and Welfare, 2010)
Life expectancy
1990
2006
2008
Males Females
Males Females
Males Females
At age 0
70,7
78,8
75,8
82,8
76,3
83,0
At age 55
20,6
26,2
24,4
29,7
24,9
29,8
The Finnish Social Protection
System:
 the principle of universality (the right of all to a basic
level of social protection regardless of where they live,
their profession or economic position)
 earnings-related benefits for employed persons
 a strong public sector
 a system based on tax funding and contributions (Rate
of taxation 2008, % of GDP 42.8)
 equal treatment (also for the elderly or ageing people)
Sanitary Aspects of
Ageing
Laura Krekula
Health policy
The number of elderly men has grown and
keeps on going
The objective for Health policy is to maintain
• good health
• ensure that an independent life can
continue as long as possible
Positive change
•
•
•
•
the conditions of living have improved
education levels have increased
the general life styles have become healthier
availability of healthcare services has
expanded
• treatment and education methods have
advanced
• people have started to prevent and discover
sicknesses earlier
Negative change
The number of sanity disorders, allergies,
asthma, diabetes, breast and lung cancer
among women and prostate cancer among
men has increased
The most common risk factors are
• overweight
• lack of physical exercise
• smoking
Medical care
All residents in Finland are entitled to health
care and medical treatment
• “The health care guarantee”
Municipalities have to care for major part of
the health services.
Health promotions are aimed at preventive
actions to improve population health and
welfare
Socioeconomic difference in health
• The differences between socioeconomic
groups have steepened
• Population in Western and Northern Finland
are more morbid than in East and South of
Finland
• Educated and wealthy pensioners have a
longer life expectancy and better health and
functional capacity than pensioners from the
other groups
Welfare technology
• The number of nurses can ´t keep up with
the number of patients
• The technology will help in both treating
diseases and promoting health
• Healthcare technology tries to find solutions
to how welfare can be increased through
technology
The most characteristics diseases
among elderly people
The Challenge
• Typical vs. minor and untypical symptoms
and signs
• Syndromes might become hard to identify
This is a normal phenomena that
involves all elderly people
• The aging process is unique for
individuals, but the diversity among them
is increasing
Problem & Solution
The aging population is a challenge for the
health care system. In the long term the
emerging diseases and other characteristics
of the elderly health care will grow and
become even bigger challenge
 Solution for the problem above is an
increase of specialized healthcare
personnel such as nurses and doctors?
Psychological
Aspects of Aging
Ninni-Ingrid Nurmos
Psychological aspects of aging
• When people are getting older, they have
to forgo several things and habits in their
life.
• This may change person´s self image.
• In these kinds of situations person may
feel that he cannot control his life and that
his life is now meaningless.
Psychological aspects of aging
• Different mental disorders are relatively common
among elderly people.
• Moreover elderly people suffer different mental
problems concerning somatic diseases.
• In Finland 21 % of women and 14 % of men over
65 years old have some kind of mental disorder.
• However, only 10 % of Finnish people over 65
years old are patients in mental health care.
Psychological aspects of aging
• Depression is one of the most central mental disorders
of elderly people.
• Estimating 15-22% of Finnish men and 19-30 % of
Finnish women over 65 years old suffer from mild
depression.
• Risk factors are female gender, previous depression
terms, depression appearing in family, other disorders,
loneliness, lack of social support and economical
problems.
• Depression may appear as disregard, apathy, lack of
interest, problems to live normal life and survive daily
functions, irritability, helplessness, being weepy, having
regrets and self-destruction thoughts.
Psychological aspects of aging
• Every second day some Finnish senior
commits suicide.
• The most common reason for that is
depression.
• Usually Finnish senior has contacted
health care before committing suicide but
he has not told about his intensions.
Psychological aspects of aging
• Substance abuse, especially use of
alcohol and prescription drugs, among
older people is increasing in Finland.
• In Finland the use of mental drugs is
relatively common among elderly people.
Usually the drug is for some symptom or
symptoms and the person is not having
any diagnostic mental disorder.
Psychological aspects of aging
• The amount of the different mental and cognitive
disorders is growing in Finland because of the
strong change of the age-composition.
• Luckily the prognosis in these disorders is as
good as in other ages as long as therapeutics is
professional.
• The problem is getting elderly people to take a
contact to health care and get this contact longtermed. Mental problems of elderly people
should be seen as serious as younger people.
Social Aspects of
Ageing
Henna Muotka
Social Aspects of Ageing
• Social relations, social support and social
activity are connected to elderly physical
and mental functioning
• Good social relations help old people to
cope with the different losses in life and
help to adapt to diseases.
Loneliness in Finland
Every third old person in Finland feels loneliness!
• Too often in Finland old person lives home alone
without family and friend near
• Elderly often live far away from their children so
it might be that they don’t have anyone who can
take care of them and who visit them
• The distances are long in Finland, especially in
the countryside, so it can be difficult for elderly to
visit friends and relatives.
Is there anything we can do to help
elderly who feels themselves lonely?
• Voluntary work, which means that
volunteers can be friends with elderly.
• Day activity for elderly. Day activity
includes for example discussion, singing
together, occupation and outdoors
activities.
Grandparenthood
• In Finland increasingly rare grandparents
live with their grandchildren
• In recent decades the role of grandparent
has been highlighted again
• Grandparents` satisfaction with life
increases when they have possibility to
meet their grandchildren often and do
things together with them
Cultural Aspects
Of Ageing
Sanna Leppälä
Situation In Finland
•
In Finland, the signs of ageing have been substantial for many
years.
• In 60 years age structures in Finland have turned upside down:
before the wars and during them the ten-children-families were not a
specialty.
• Agricultural culture conditions under big child-flocks were thought to
bring the so-called labor force to replace the family and they were
supposed to do the economy works, then when the parents no
longer existed.
• Another reason for large child-flocks, of course, could also be a lack
of knowledge of contraception.
…Continues
• In many, especially in Southern European countries, the
grandparents are exactly the same way as the family of their own
sisters and parents.
• Often when the grandparents entry into old age, and become more
helpless they are taken up residence in the same household with
children and grandchildren.
• In Finland, this is quite rare: the grandparents are encouraged to be
doing at home as long as possible and for many people the idea of
elderly home is even scary.
Assistance From Culture?
• Thousands of years have been believed that art has a
power of healing. Even during the ancient art of used as
a tool of therapy, such as the flute music was thought to
heal from depression, theater performances generated a
strong emotional charge out neuroses.
• Recent clinical trials verify this belief. Cultural activities
and the arts seem to be really important and a positive
impact on human health.
Cultural Problems Of Ageing
• Depression  unwillingness for
participating different kind of cultural
situtations
• Isolation
• Self-esteem –problems
• Occupancy problems  old people’s
homes  carrying capacities
• Loneliness
Solutions To Problems
• More social activities to the senior citizens
• Concerts
• Museum exhibitions
• Theatre  as a hobby
• Better home services
Economic Aspects
of Ageing
Marjut Heiskanen
Economic Aspects of Ageing
• Ageing effects on the economic growth and
labor supply
• In Finland the ageing labor force and large
generation retirement will increase from year
2010.
• Pension age will increase in proportion to the
number of people of working age dramatically in
the first half of this millennium.
• Ageing of public spending rises causes high
demands on the management of public finances.
This in turn leads to tighter labor income
taxation.
• Ageing of the population affects the economy,
above all, the labor market and public finances
carried out by intergenerational transfers
through.
The effects of social spending
• Social expenditure as a proportion of the
total value of production will rise
significantly in the next twenty years.
• Social expenditure growth depends
primarily on the growth of pension
expenditures as well as social and health
needs of growth. Social expenditure
growth in the financial means increase of
the total tax rate .
• Age dependent cost population ageing will
have the fastest and strongest impact in
the pension expenditure
• Pension expenditure will also increase the
life expectancy.
• Retirement age increase in the number of
working age, and it causes higher tax
expenses in the future.
The effects in regional
differences of ageing people
• In rural areas and small municipalities,
retirement age and the elderly proportion of the
population is much bigger than in cities.
• Ageing may move to provide better services and
for their children after towns and growth centers
if the supply of services in country areas can not
be secured.
• Finland winning migratory areas have recently
found only in the Helsinki region and its
immediate surroundings,
Aspects of Labour
Jaakko Tuomi
Ageing society and increasing
share of pensioners
• Ageing is considered to be a significant political
and economic challenge
• The baby boom generation
 Number of pensioners will increase
 Lack of work power
• It may push the economic growth down to 1 per
cent
Aspects of labour
• Ageing affects to everyone:
• Individuals
• Enterprises and organizations
• The entire society
Individuals
• Problem/possibility
-working ability
-health
-know-how
-work motivation
-burn-out
-unemployment
Enterprises and Organizations
• Problem/possibility
-productivity
-competitiveness
-absence from work
-unwillingness to change
-work community
-working environment
-supply of labour
The Society
• Problem/possibility
-work- and pensionable
attitudes
-ageism
-retirement age
-disability to work
-maintenance relations
-pension expenditures
-expenditures of the health
care
Solution
• Age Management
– Age management is needed in different stages of
decision-making so that labour-, educational- and
retirement policies would support the employment
opportunities of the ageing people
– Good Age Management ensures the passage of the
tac-it knowledge from generation to next