countries - fi - Facts and figures

Facts and figures

Data on employment indicate that:
Labour market statistics in Finland include data on population by activity (preliminary data 2008) and unemployment (end 2007)

Disabled people at work 2002-2006

Eurostat data suggests that there was an increase in the estimated number of disabled people in work, from 17% in 2002 to 24% in 2006 (with a faster increase, from a lower base, for disabled women than for disabled men). According to Ministry of Labour and the Statistical Yearbook of Finnish Social Insurance Institute 20% of people with disabilities and 70% of all people had paid work.

Data on education indicate that:
Data from Statistics Finland suggest that transfer of pupils from comprehensive to special education has been increasing for more than a decade

Special education is increasingly organised in conjunction with comprehensive education In 2006-2007, 22% (128,600) of comprehensive school pupils attended special schools on a part time basis.

Pupils with learning difficulties are the largest group entering full time special education.

Data on accessibility indicate that:
Ministry of Transport and Communications' Research and Development Programme for Accessibility "ELSA"

A number of projects have been developed in Design for All studies within Finnish universities and polytechnics (2006)

The Communication and Technology Centre TikoteekkiTikas is a pedagogical ICT training model developed for teaching people who learn differently.

A national action programme Towards Barrier-Free Communication was published by the Ministry of Transport and Communications in 2005. Since then, new research has been completed and new objectives established.

Finland has a modern electronic communications infrastructure but, according to the 2007 MeAC e-Accessibility survey findings for Finland:

None of the selected public or commercial/sectoral websites passed the evaluation of accessibility (there is no legislation on web accessibility but the 2003 Act on Electronic Services and Communication in the Public Sector does require compatibility with assistive technologies).

The main emergency telephone number was accessible by text and a relay or video service was available. However, none the two main telephone operators provided accessibility information on their websites.

One of the public TV stations provided subtitling of around 20% of its Finnish language broadcasts (one provided a small number of signed programmes).

Neither of the two main banks had plans to install talking ATMs.

Data on poverty and incomes indicate that:
According to the latest national study, poverty and low incomes of disabled people are permanent issues in Finland although historical data is not readily available.

22% of disabled people aged 25-64 have lower incomes than non-disabled people.

Disabled people have an employment rate of around 25-30% and a third of them have a disability pension (Linnakangas, Ritva, Suikkanen, Asko, Savtschenko, Viktor & Virta Lauri: Uuden alussa vai umpikujassa? Vammaiset matkalla yhdenvertaiseen kansalaisuuteen. 2006.

Data on attitudes indicate that:
The National Council on Disability (VANE) reports that, although a basic positive attitude has been found in recent attitude research, disabled people are considered as objects and not subjects. The recession of the 1990s worsened attitudes.

The 2007 Special Eurobarometer on Discrimination in Europe, showed that 58% of people knew someone who was disabled) and 84% acknowledged that being disabled tended to be disadvantage in society (both slightly higher than the EU average).

However, disability discrimination was not viewed as particularly widespread (only 43% thought this compared to an EU average of 53%); Only 19% thought that disability discrimination was more widespread than five years ago.

78% thought that more disabled people should be in the workplace (higher than the EU average of 74%) and 86% thought specific measures on equal opportunities were needed in this field.

Data on public spending indicate that:
Social expenditure on disability was €5,570 million in 2007 and 12% of total social expenditure (€45,615 million) in Finland.(source: Statistical yearbook of Finnish Social Insurance Institution 2007)