Childlessness more common among low educated

About 18.8 per cent of women aged 45 to 49 resident in Finland in 2018 and speaking national languages were childless, according to Statistics Finland.

The share of childless women among those with basic level qualifications was 22.5 per cent, 18.7 per cent for those with upper secondary level qualifications and 18.3 per cent for those with tertiary level qualifications.

Over ten years, the share of childless women among those with upper secondary level qualifications has increased by 3.6 percentage points and by 3.0 percentage points among those with basic level qualifications.

Among men aged 45 to 49 resident in Finland and speaking national languages 26.7 per cent were childless at the end of 2018. For men, the differences in the proportion of childless persons by level of education are clearly higher than for women.

Among men with basic level qualifications one-third were childless, 29.4 per cent of those with upper secondary level qualifications and 20.8 per cent for those with tertiary level qualifications.

More childless men and women aged 45 to 49 with basic level qualifications were living without a spouse in 2018 than in 1987.

Now, 43 per cent of childless women aged 45 to 49 with upper secondary level qualifications lived with a spouse, while in 1987 the share was 37 per cent.

The development for childless men and women aged 45 to 49 with tertiary level qualifications deviates from one another. An increasing number of men are living without a spouse while and increasing number of women are living with a spouse. While 70 per cent of childless women with tertiary level qualifications lived without a spouse in 1987, the share in 2018 was good one-half.

The degree of urbanisation has been discussed actively in recent years. Consolidation of municipalities into large regional centres has made it harder to follow the urbanisation development.

As a result of administrative decisions, the population in the consolidated areas have become part of the urban population without the persons actually changing their place of residence. Conventional statistical grouping of municipalities does no longer in this changed situation provide an accurate picture of the development.

In total, 61 per cent of the Finnish population lived in core urban areas at the end of 2018. The core urban area consists of an inner and outer urban area. The outer boundary of the outer urban area refers to the outer edge of the built area with a street plan and describes the continuous built urban area.

Based on the conventional statistical grouping of municipalities, 72 per cent of the entire population was living in urban municipalities at the end of 2018.