Overview
Finland is famous for a variety of reasons, one of those being that the country has its own law to respect the rights of young people. The Youth Act promotes social inclusion, opportunities to participate in the decision-making over matters of concern, development of individuals' abilities, improvement of living conditions, and access to free-time hobbies and youth work — to name a few. The Government Decree supports the implementation of the act by, for example, specifying the allocation of the duties involved at the national, regional and local levels.
The National Youth Work and Policy Programme has its basis in the Youth Act, but it is also informed by the Government Programme. Due to the parliamentary elections on April 2023, the next National Youth Work and Youth Policy Programme will be adopted by the new Government and published in 2024 (see more Youth Wiki Finland 1.9 Current debates and reforms). For that perspective, all the Youth Wiki chapters will be updated in 2023–2024.
In addition, the Government has launched a national cross-administrative democracy programme extending until 2025. One of the key priorities of the democracy programme is to develop school teaching and other school practices, as well as to support children’s and young people’s ability to have a say in their local environment and society. (For more information, see Youth Wiki/Finland 5.5 National strategy to increase youth participation).
There have been also some structural changes related to the organisation of public services in Finland. The responsibility for organising public health care services, social welfare services and rescue services has been transferred from municipalities to wellbeing services counties from January 2023. The key objective of the reform has been to improve the availability and quality of basic public services throughout Finland, to reinforce primary level services and to shift the emphasis towards preventive work. For more information, see Youth Wiki/Finland 7.2 Administration and governance.
Ratio of young people in the total population on 1st January
Ratio of men and women in the youth population
Statistic references
References:
Ratio (%) of young people in the total population (2017): Eurostat, yth_demo_020 [data extracted on 4/09/2018].
Absolute number of young people on 1 January for the age group 15-29 (2017): Eurostat, yth_demo_010 [data extracted on 4/09/2018].
Ratio (%) of men and women in the youth population (2017): Eurostat, yth_demo_020 [data extracted on 4/09/2018].
Young immigrants from non-EU countries (2016): Eurostat, yth_demo_070 [data extracted on 4/09/2018].