Research results

Explore the research findings from the LIFECON project on the following topics:

Family formation
Working life
Aging, health, and care
Economy and forecasts

Working life

This section presents the research findings of the project regarding changes in the structure of the working-age population, shifts in the labor market, and strategies for extending careers.

Interventions during childhood and adolescence play a key role in reducing sickness absences. The decline is mainly explained by unobserved factors that are stabilised before entering the labour market, or that do not change much during working life. The decline is also partially explained by structural changes in the workforce – more educated workers entered the labour market.

Scientific article: Laura Salonen, Elli Hartikainen, Svetlana Solovieva, Eira Viikari-Juntura, Taina Leinonen. Contribution of compositional changes in the workforce to sickness absence trends in Finland. SSM Popul Health 2023.

Earlier sickness absence reduces the annual proportion of time spent at work after vocational labour market training, especially among those who had sickness absence due to mental disorders. The underlying reasons are manifold, and more research would be needed. However, the results speak for a need for better targeting of labor policy measures.

Scientific article: Salonen Laura, Solovieva Svetlana, Kauhanen Antti, Hartikainen Elli, Viikari-Juntura Eira, Leinonen Taina. Does previous sickness absence affect work participation after vocational labour market training? A difference-in-differences propensity score matching approach European Journal of Public Health

Migrants care workers clearly had a lower risk of being out of work for more than ten days due to illness than those born in Finland. A recent study compared the sickness absences in Finland of migrant and non-migrant care workers in Finland.

Scientific Article: Olakivi A, Kouvonen A, Koskinen A, Kemppainen L, Kokkinen L, Väänänen A. Sickness absence among migrant and non-migrant care workers in Finland: A register-based follow-up study. Scandinavian Journal of Public Health. 2023;0(0).

It is much more challenging for educated women with migrant backgrounds to find employment in Finland than for educated men with migrant backgrounds or educated women of Finnish backgrounds. The study examined the transition of unemployed educated people into working life from 2014 to 2019. According to the researchers, new targeted means are needed to support the employment of women with a foreign background, and it would be important for jobs to open doors for skilled women who have moved to Finland.

Scientific Article (In Finnish): Minna Toivanen, Ari Väänänen. Koulutettujen työttömien ulkomaalais- ja suomalaistaustaisten naisten työllisyyspolut Yhteiskuntapolitiikka-lehti 1/23.

In the 2017 pension reform, the old-age pension age was gradually raised upwards. Since various health problems increase with age, the key question is how the state of health makes it possible to continue working as the retirement age increases. According to our research, the healthy working years of people aged 50–65 have increased between 2000 and 2017. Working despite health problems and poor work ability has also become more common.

Read more in ETK Blog (In Finnish) >>

Scientific article: Mikko Laaksonen, Marko Elovainio, Sakari Kainulainen, Taina Leinonen, Tuija Jääskeläinen, Harri Rissanen, Seppo Koskinen, Changes in healthy and unhealthy working life expectancies among older working-age people in Finland, 2000–2017, European Journal of Public Health, Volume 32, Issue 5, October 2022, Pages 729–734.

In the years after the financial crisis, from 2010 to 2016, the expected working career lengthened for 50-year-olds, but not for 30-year-olds. An increasing number of working years are lost due to unemployment, and unemployment has replaced the disability pension as the biggest cause of lost working time. Looking at each industry, most working years are lost in the fields of accommodation and nutrition, administrative and support services, and art and entertainment.

Scientific Article (In Finnish): Leinonen, Taina, Viikari-Juntura, Eira, Solovieva, Svetlana. Työajanodotteet ja menetetyt työvuodet yleisessä väestössä ja eri toimialoilla vuosina 2010, 2013 ja 2016. Työpoliittinen aikakauskirja 2/2022:10–22.

The remaining working career is extended when a person who was absent from work due to illness returns to work part-time with a partial sickness allowance. In this case, the time spent unemployed and on a full disability pension is shortened, while the time on a partial disability pension is longer. However, the working careers of partial disability pensioners are remarkably long. The use of partial sickness allowance increases working years, especially in the private sector, while in the public sector, partial disability pension is used more.

Scientific article: Leinonen, Taina, Viikari-Juntura, Eira, Solovieva, Svetlana. Has the share of the working life expectancy that is spent receiving a partial or full disability pension changed in Finland over the period 2005–2018? A longitudinal register-based study. BMJ Open 2022;12:e061085.

Ageing, health and care

This section presents research findings on the reasons for and consequences of the health and care needs of the aging population.

The residential area itself does not seem to significantly affect the health or mortality of the residents. However, the differences between low- and high-income neighborhoods are considerable. The total mortality of the neighborhoods belonging to the lowest income quintile in terms of average income was about double compared to the highest income quintile for both men and women. In terms of accidental and violent cases of illness and death, the differences were even slightly larger. The health differences according to the income level of the neighborhoods increased compared to the beginning of the 1990s for both sexes, but the increase in the differences was greater for women.

Scientific article: Lasse Tarkiainen, Pekka Martikainen. Long-term trends in urban-neighbourhood inequalities in cause-specific mortality and hospitalisation – multilevel analyses among individuals nested in Finnish post-code areas, 1991–2018. SSM Popul Health. 2023 Mar; 21: 101323.

Economy and forecasts

Under this section, you will find research findings on the impact of changes in population structure on the national economy and public finances, as well as solutions to enhance the sustainability of the welfare state.

Finland needs a net immigration of up to 44,000 people with the current age and gender structure in order to permanently stabilize the size of the birth and working age cohorts. The number is almost three times the immigration predicted by Statistics Finland. The reason for the high estimate lies in the low birth rate. Additional migration would still not be enough to stop the aging of the population as life expectancy increases, but our maintenance ratio would become more favorable. The effects on the public finances would also be positive.

The report (In Finnish): Maahanmuutto ja työvoiman riittävyys – taloudellisten vaikutusten arviointia Alho Juha, kangasharju Aki, Lassila Jukka, Valkonen Tarmo. ETLA Raportti No. 132 (2023).

This study looked at how much life insurance would be needed for different households in Finland in order to maintain the standard of living after the death of the family's guardian. The study found that, in general, only about one in ten Finns has voluntary life insurance: mostly among people of working age, those with higher incomes, and those who are married. The insurance gap, i.e. the difference between net losses and life insurance, was the largest among young people, men, higher incomes, and more highly educated people. In addition, it was found that the size of the losses due to death only weakly explains the taking of life insurance.

The report: Ropponen, Olli, Kuusi, Tero & Valkonen, Tarmo. “Mind the Gap – Assessing the Size and Determinants of the Life Insurance Gap”. ETLA Working Papers No 96 (2022).

When future population development is described with stochastic calculations, it is challenging to communicate the results and the related uncertainty to both decision-makers and the general public. The article presents a formulaic framework that can be used to decompose the effects of uncertainty related to future fertility, mortality, and migration into both point forecasts and forecast distributions. An application example uses a tax rate that is sufficient to cover public expenditures caused by an aging population in a given time period.

Scientific Article: Alho Juha & Lassila Jukka. 2023. Assessing Components of Uncertainty in Demographic Forecasts with an Application to Fiscal Sustainability. Journal of Forecasting, 1–9.

Reports

Tilannekuvaraportti 2021 (Strateginen tutkimus, in Finnish)

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News and updates

Complete list of publications

Research results

Working life

Sickness absence declined between 2005 and 2015 in Finland. Why?

Vocational labour market training – better targeting of labor policy measures needed

Migrants care workers have fewer episodes of sickness absence

A skilled workforce is left out of working life, as unemployment of highly educated women with migrant backgrounds prolongs

The retirement age increases, what about health?

The importance of unemployment as a cause of lost working years has increased and the disability pension has decreased

Working during a partial disability pension extends the working career by up to several years

Ageing, health and care

Neighborhood differences within large Finnish cities in mortality and morbidity of 20–64-year-olds since the 1990s

Economy and forecasts

Etla Economic Research calculated what would stop the reduction of the labor force in Finland - almost three times the net immigration

The components and totality of the life insurance deficit

Uncertainty components of population forecasts: assessment and application to public finance sustainability calculation

Reports

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