Families: documentation of statistics

The body compiling statistics on families in Finland is in a privileged position because the Population Information System is available, where each person has, in addition to a personal identity code, a place of residence code that indicates which dwelling the person lives in. The statistics on families can be compiled concerning the whole population annually, quickly and without burdening people with expensive inquiries. In addition to Finland, this is possible at least in Denmark.

Deduction of families from the Population Information System causes problems mainly in two respects:

1. Only persons who are registered at the same dwelling can be combined to a family.

2. Cohabiting couples (marriage-like relationship) must be deduced.

1. According to international concept definitions, a family can also be formed according to the official place of residence, as is done in Finland. However, families in which, for example, one of the spouses is registered in another locality because of work although they are staying with the rest of the family during weekends and holidays, are not complete in the statistics. Similarly, a couple can live together even though one of them is still registered somewhere else, for example with the previous spouse.

However, the majority of people in Finland live where they are registered. The Population Information System maintained by the Digital and Population Data Services Agency and the State Department of Åland can be regarded as very exhaustive in terms of persons. To obtain a personal identity code, a person has to be registered in the Population Information System. It is in practice impossible to live in Finland without a personal identity code. A personal identity code is needed so that one can work legally, open a bank account, have dealings with authorities, etc.

Since the discontinuation of yearly checking of domicile registers in 1989, the Population Information System has been maintained only by notifications of changes to population information. The Digital and Population Data Services Agency has requested Statistics Finland to carry out a sample survey on the correctness of address data. Around 11,000 persons are asked whether their address in the Population Information System is correct. In the latest survey 2012, the address was correct for 98.9 per cent of the respondents.

The Municipality of Residence Act has improved the deduction of young cohabiting couples. Now students can register in their place of study unlike before.

2. Deduction of a marriage-like relationship from the Population Information System is more problematic. The alternative is to exclude cohabiting couples without children completely from the statistics and combine cohabiting couples only with the help of common children. However, because statistics are meant to describe society as truthfully as possible, it is probably closer to the truth to deduct cohabiting couples based on a common address than to exclude them from the statistics.

The program most likely deduces non-existent cohabiting couples, on the other hand, it does not deduce cohabiting couples aged under 18 or cohabiting couples whose age difference is over 15 years. However, the number of cohabiting couples deduced by the program was very close to the figures obtained in interview surveys prior to initiating the deduction.

In 1989, cohabiting couples were still obtained with a separate interview survey. The targets of the interviews were persons, not families. The question was asked only of persons whose marital status was not “married”. Based on the sample, it was estimated that there were 372,000 cohabiting persons aged 15 to 64 in Finland. In the family statistics for the following year, 370,000 persons aged 18 to 64 were classified as cohabiting persons based on their address. However, some of them had the marital status “married”. According to the samples, the number of cohabiting couples grew by around 20,000 persons per year at the end of the 1980s.

Considering the differences in age limits and the importance of marital status in the inference of cohabiting couples, it can be concluded that the number of cohabiting couples deduced in family statistics is slightly lower than the real situation measured by samples. However, the inference of cohabiting couples gives a sufficiently good picture of the family structure in society. This allows us to monitor the trend of the development and to examine different family types as larger groups. However, caution is needed when making individual-level conclusions about these couples.

Family data are not fully comparable before and after 1990, when cohabiting couples started to be deduced based on them living together. The family publication uses sample surveys to estimate the family distribution for the whole country for 1960 and 1970, inclusive of cohabiting couples without common children. The figures for 1980 and 1985 have been output with the new classification from the original data. Including cohabiting couples in the statistics increases the number of families and at the same time decreases the number of one-parent families, because some of the parents cohabit with a new spouse. In the family statistics, same-sex cohabiting couples are not deduced unless two women not married or in a registered partnership live together with a child to whom one of the women is the biological mother and the other the confirmed mother.

The fact that starting from 1990, no restrictions are imposed on the marital status of a person classified as a child also increases the number of families. Now, for example, a divorced person who returns to live with his/her mother forms a family with the mother, previously the mother and child were recorded as being outside the family population.

Finnish population statistics are based on data obtained from the Population Information System maintained by the Digital and Population Data Services Agency and the State Department of Åland. Local population register authorities continuously update the Population Information System with information on population changes that occur among the population resident in the country. Since 1975, Statistics Finland has obtained population data weekly in machine-executable form from the Digital and Population Data Services Agency.

The last yearly checking of population domicile registers was carried out in Finland on 1 January 1989. Since then the Population Information System has been updated from change notifications. The data stored in the Population Information System are specified in the Act (21 August 2009/661) on the Population Information System and the certificate services of the Digital and Population Data Services Agency. Notifications on population changes for the ended year are awaited up to the last day of January of the following year.

The data for the statistics on population structure are drawn from the Population Information System. The data of the statistics on population structure are the basis for the family statistics.

The compilation of statistics is guided by the Statistics Act. The Statistics Act contains provisions on collection of data, processing of data and the obligation to provide data. Besides the Statistics Act, the Data Protection Act and the Act on the Openness of Government Activities are applied to processing of data when producing statistics. 

Statistics Finland compiles statistics in line with the EU’s regulations applicable to statistics, which steer the statistical agencies of all EU Member States.  

Further information: Statistical legislation

The data protection of data collected for statistical purposes is guaranteed in accordance with the requirements of the Statistics Act (280/2004), the Act on the Openness of Government Activities (621/1999), the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679 and the Data Protection Act (1050/2018). The data materials are protected at all stages of processing with the necessary physical and technical solutions. Statistics Finland has compiled detailed directions and instructions for confidential processing of the data. Employees have access only to the data essential for their duties. The premises where unit-level data are processed are not accessible to outsiders. Members of the personnel have signed a pledge of secrecy upon entering the service. Violation of data protection is punishable. 

Further information: Data protection | Statistics Finland (stat.fi)

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Further information: Publication principles for statistics at Statistics Finland

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Further information: Publication principles for statistics 

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