Quality report: Statistics on Pensioners in Finland
1. Contact
1.1 Contact organisation
The Finnish Centre for Pensions and the Social Insurance Institution of Finland (Kela).
1.2 Contact organisation unit
Finnish Centre for Pensions: Planning Department, Kela: Information Services.
1.3 Contact name
Joonas Hautamäki (Finnish Centre for Pensions)
Jari Kannisto (Finnish Centre for Pensions)
Reeta Pösö (Kela)
1.4 Contact person function
Statistical expert
1.5 Contact mail address
The Finnish Centre for Pensions
FI-00065 ELÄKETURVAKESKUS
Finland
1.6 Contact email address
firstname.lastname@etk.fi
firstname.surname@kela.fi
Contact form (Finnish Centre for Pensions)
1.7 Contact phone number
+358 29 411 20 (Finnish Centre for Pensions)
1.8 Contact fax number
Fax: +358 9 148 1172 (Finnish Centre for Pensions)
2. Metadata update
2.1. Metadata last certified
27 March 2024
2.2. Metadata last posted
27 March 2024
2.3. Metadata last update
27 March 2024
3. Statistical presentation
3.1. Data description
The statistics describe the number and average pensions of persons who have received pensions from the Finnish earnings-related and national pension schemes and those who have retired.
3.2. Classification system
Pension scheme; pension benefit; pension amount; gender and age of pension recipient; disease classification ICD-10, regional classification: municipality, province, wellbeing services county and country of residence.
3.3. Sector coverage
The statistics cover all statutory pensions from the Finnish earnings-related and national pension schemes. It combines the pensions a person receives from different sources.
3.4. Statistical concepts and definitions
Concepts and definitions have been presented on the statistics page.
3.3. Statistical unit
Person / pension recipient.
3.6. Statistical population
Persons receiving a pension from the Finnish earnings-related and national pension schemes.
3.7. Reference area
Municipality, province, wellbeing services county and country of residence.
3.8. Time coverage
Basic data are available from 1981 onwards. Data on retired persons are available from 2001 onwards.
4. Unit of measure
Number of persons.
Amount of pension: €/month (gross).
Share of population: % of population covered by Kela social insurance.
5. Reference period
For pension recipients, the last day of the statistical year. For retired persons, the calendar year.
6. Institutional mandate
6.1. Legal acts and other agreements
Both the Finnish Centre for Pensions and Kela are obliged to compile statistics. The Act on the Finnish Centre for Pensions states that the Finnish Centre for Pensions is responsible for statistical activities within its field of competence. Similarly, the Act on the Social Insurance Institution states that Kela is responsible for compiling statistics, estimates and forecasts.
6.2. Data sharing
The same datasets are shared between the Finnish Centre for Pensions and Kela. Part of the data is also sent to Statistics Finland, for example for employment statistics.
Statistical data are sent annually to the NOSOSCO group for social benefits and to the Finnish Institute of Health and Welfare for the European System of Integrated Social Protection Statistics (ESSPROS).
7. Confidentiality
7.1. Confidentiality – policy
The Finnish Centre for Pensions is committed to data protection as a fundamental principle of statistics, which ensures the confidentiality of data.
7.2. Confidentiality – data treatment
Data is protected by the necessary physical and technical solutions at the various stages of processing. Personnel have access only to the data necessary for their work. Third parties do not have access to the premises where the data is processed. Employees are required to sign a confidentiality agreement when they are hired.
8. Release Policy
The Statistical Yearbook on Pensioners in Finland is a joint statistics produced by the Finnish Centre for Pensions and Kela and released on the website of the Finnish Centre for Pensions.
The statistics of the Finnish Centre for Pensions are released on weekdays at 9.00 a.m. on the website of the Finnish Centre for Pensions. Any exceptions to the release time are announced separately.
The data in the statistical database are released as open data. The database’s open interface can be freely used under the CC BY 4.0 licence, with the Finnich Centre for Pensions being cited as the source of the statistical data.
8.1. Release Calendar
The release dates of the statistics are published in the release calendar. The release calendar for the following year is published towards the end of the year.
8.2. Release calendar access
8.3. User access
The statistics are available to everyone when they are published on the website of the Finnish Centre for Pensions at a previously announced date.
Embargo policy: Media that are bound by the journalist’s guidelines may request material from the Finnish Centre for Pensions’ Communications Department.
9. Frequency of dissemination
Data on retired persons are published in March each year. Data on new retirees are published in June.
A separate publication is issued each autumn.
10. Accessibility and clarity
10.1. News release
The publications of the statistics can be found in the shared open repository Julkari: Statistical Yearbook of Pensioners in Finland 2023
Press releases on this topic can be found online at the website of the statistics.
Statistics on pensioners in Finland (Julkari)
10.2. Publications
Statistical yearbook of pensioners in Finland (Julkari)
Statistical yearbook of pensioners in Finland, 2004–2017 (Julkari)
10.3. Online database
Number of pension recipients (PxWeb)
Number of new retirees (PxWeb)
Size of pension recipients’ pension (PxWeb)
Size of new retirees’ pension (PxWeb)
Share of population receiving a pension (PxWeb)
Pension recipients living abroad (PxWeb)
10.4. Microdata access
At the Finnish Centre for Pensions, we can extract research material from our registers for scientific research. We disclose the data in compliance with the principles of the Act on the Openness of Government Activities and the Data Protection Act. As a rule, we do not disclose register data for commercial purposes. The scientific research must be identified.
Apply for research access to register data of the Finnish Centre for Pensions (pdf)
11. Quality Management
11.1. Quality assurance
The Finnish Centre for Pensions is committed to the quality principles of Official Statistics of Finland. Our statistical production follows the quality criteria of Official Statistics of Finland, which are compatible with the European Statistics Code of Practice.
11.2. Quality assessment
The quality of statistics is assessed at several stages in the statistical process.
12. Relevance
12.1. User needs
Feedback from users is gathered through customer surveys. Feedback is also collected through direct contact. The feedback received is monitored and taken into account in the development of the statistics.
13. Accuracy and reliability
13.1. Overall accuracy
The data are based on administrative registers. The source data are at individual level and used for the payment of pensions.
13.2. Sampling error
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13.3. Non-sampling error
The register data are extracted at the beginning of the year, when some of the retroactive pension decisions may be missing from the statistical data.
14. Timeliness and punctuality
14.1. Timeliness
The statistical data are produced in several parts, which are published in three separate releases after the data quality check.
The first part is published in March of the year following the statistical reference year and the last part in September.
15. Coherence and comparability
15.1. Comparability – geographical
The regional classification (municipalities, counties, welfare regions) in force in each statistical year is used in the statistics.
15.2. Comparability – over time
The statistics have been compiled since 1981. From the beginning, they have reflected the number and average pensions of persons receiving a pension from the earnings-related and/or national pension schemes. During this period, several legislative changes have been made to both pension schemes, and the coverage of the statistics has been extended over the years. However, the time series of the statistic are broadly comparable.
The comparability of the time series is affected by the following changes:
In 1991 the statistic were completed by adding the money amounts of SOLITA pension to the pensions of persons receiving an earnings-related and/or national pension. SOLITA pensions are included in the average pensions and in the pension size distributions. They take precedence over earnings-related and national pensions, so that this additino is an essential complement to the pension coverage of these persons.
In 1996, a new concept of ‘own pension’ was introduced in the statistics, replacing the previous concept of ‘own and/or special pension’.
From the beginning of 2001, the basic component of the national pension was no longer paid. This change did not affect the total number of pensioners, but it shifted the number of recipients of both earnings-related and national pensions towards those receiving only earnings-related pensions. The abolition of the basic component was due to the transformation of the national pension into a reduced earnings-related pension at the beginning of 1996, when the national pension was no longer granted without a supplementary component. Before 1 January 1996, national pensions without a supplementary component were gradually reduced over a period of five years. With the abolition of the basic component, from 1996 onwards, a national pension paid solely as a pensioner’s housing or care allowance, child allowance or front-line allowance is not counted as a national pension for the purposes of these statistics.
Since 2008, the concept of national pension changed and the housing or care allowance of a pensioner is no longer counted among pensions. They are thus not included in the figures of this statistic or in the pension figures in the other statistics of Kela. The change slightly reduced average pensions.
Since 2011, when the Guarantee Pension Act came into force, the cash amount of the guarantee pension was added to the total pension of pensioners receiving earnings-related and/or national pension (not to pension in one’s own right or survivors’ pension.) The change raised the averages of total pensions.
As of the statistical year 2020, survivors’ pensions (the surviving spouse’s pension and orphan’s pension) that amount to 0 euro are no longer included in figures of the statistics. This change affects the number of recipients of survivors’ pensions and the average pension level.
The amount of the paid survivors’ pensions is affected by the surviving spouse’s own earnings-related pension (or calculated accrued pension) and benefits paid based on motor liability and accident insurance. Taking them into consideration may lead to a survivors’ pension of 0 euro.
15.3. Coherence – cross domain
Differences in definitions make comparisons with other statistics for the same statistical domain difficult.
These statistics cover only statutory pensions, excluding, for example, voluntary supplementary pension schemes.
15.4. Coherence – internal
The data on earnings-related pensions in this statistics correspond to the data in the statistics Earnings-related Pension Recipients in Finland, published by the Finnish Centre for Pensions.
Earnings-related Pension Recipients in Finland
The data on national pensions differ from the Kela pension statistics with regard to the concept of ‘new retiree’. The Kela statistics use the term ‘new pensions’.
16. Cost and burden
The production of the statistics is financed jointly by the Finnish Centre for Pensions and Kela.
17. Data Revision
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18. Statistical processing
18.1. Source data
The statistics is based on the registers of the Finnish Centre for Pensions and Kela.
18.2. Frequency of data collection
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18.3. Data collection
Administrative registers.
18.4. Data validation
Adjustments are made at different stages of statistical production in accordance with the production processes of the Finnish Centre for Pensions. In addition, the results are compared with changes in legislation and with data from previous statistical years.
18.5. Data compilation
Combination of person-level pension data extracted from the registers of the Finnish Centre for Pensions and Kela. Further processing produces aggregated data and statistical tables.