News 7 Dec 2015

Statistics draw a picture of a changing Finland

The newly published Statistical Yearbook of Finland 2015 describes in great detail Finnish society and its development over the past years and decades.

The Statistical Yearbook of Finland is an extensive basic reference book of statistics containing both topical statistical data and long time series. Apart from data on Finland, the book also contains abundant international comparison data. The Yearbook has been published since 1879. The yearbook is in three languages, Finnish, Swedish and English.

Extracts from the contents of the Statistical Yearbook of Finland 2015:

  • At the end of 2014, Finland's population was 5,471,753. The population grew by 20,483 persons from the previous year. In all, 322,711 persons in the population were of foreign background. Of them, 15 per cent had been born in Finland.
  • Last year, 902 fewer children were born than one year earlier. There were 57,232 live-born children. Fifty-seven per cent of children were born in wedlock and 43 per cent outside the marriage.
  • The number of families with children decreased by 2,117 families last year. There were 573,566 families with children, which was 39 per cent of all families. The share of reconstituted families among families with children was nine per cent.
  • In 2014, EUR 2,704.2 million was paid in earnings-related allowance. There were 332,457 recipients of earnings-related allowance and the biggest recipient age group was those aged 60 to 64. Altogether EUR 298.7 million was paid in basic allowance to 74,820 persons; the biggest group of basic allowance recipients was aged 25 to 29. EUR 1,503.8 million was paid in labour market support to 268,277 persons, with those aged 20 to 24 being the biggest recipient group.
  • Last year, there was a total of 1.5 million pensioners of whom 81 per cent were receiving old-age pension. There were 27,896 new recipients of old-age pension and their number grew by 2.3 per cent from the year before.
  • In 2014, there were 26,590 war veterans. There were 1,361 male and 1,174 female war veterans aged over 94.
  • The export value of high technology goods was EUR 3,825 million in 2014, which was seven per cent of Finland's total exports. The value of high technology imports was EUR 5,755 million and it accounted for ten per cent of all imports. High technology exports increased by eight per cent and imports by three per cent from the year before.
  • In 2014, a total of 417,898 offences became known to the police, customs or the border guard, which was 6,888 fewer than in the previous year. One-third of the offences were thefts that numbered 1,746 more than in 2013. 
  • Last year, 4.0 million people belonged to the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, which was 74 per cent of the population. Members of the Finnish Orthodox Church numbered 58,361, or 1.1 per cent of the population. In 2014, the proportion of persons with no religious affiliation of the population was 23.5 per cent.

Source: Statistical Yearbook of Finland 2015. Statistics Finland. Price EUR 80 (incl. VAT).
The publication can be ordered from the customer service of Edita Publishing Oy, tel. +358 20 450 05 or from Edita's NetMarket online store.
The Yearbook can also be downloaded in PDF format at tilastokeskus.fi/vuosikirja2015

Further information: Sirkku Hiltunen +358 29 551 6373