Educational expenditures in Finland up to the year 2030
Keywords:
education, educational costs, national economy, FinlandAbstract
In this paper expenditures on education and their share to the gross domestic product (GDP) in Finland are estimated until 2030. The estimate of the number of pupils is based on the 1991 population prognosis made by the Central Statistical Office of Finland. The actual education expenditures per pupil has been calculated for different levels of education in 1980-1990. In the future only real labor costs per pupil are assumed to increase. They will increase at the average rate of the labor productivity growth in the economy. Other real costs (teaching materials, welfare services, administrative costs, etc.) per pupil are assumed to be constant during the prognosis period. Although the school age population will clearly diminish, the real education expenditures will increase by one thirds up to 2030 in Finland. However, at the same time the share of these expenditures to the GDP will decrease by two percentage points. On the other hand social expenditures in proportion to the GDP will increase very rapidly due to the aging population. Yet the growth rate of the public expenditures is expected to be only sligthly higher than the growth rate of the GDP.
