Family formation and structure in Finland
Keywords:
family formation, consensual unions, marriages, divorce, FinlandAbstract
The article is an overview of the changes in family formation and structure in Finland during the last few decades. The period examined extends from the 1950s until the beginning of the 1990s with the emphasis on the current situation. The article starts with a look on the changes in union establishment and shows that, on the whole, the age at starting the union has been unchanged if one takes into consideration that a union today starts with premarital cohabitation. There are more divorces than earlier. The dissolution frequency is higher among consensual unions than in marriages. The most common type of family is a family consisting of married parents with children. Living in marriage has decreased among young persons while consensual unions have become more common. The proportion of one-parent families has been almost unchanged during the last two decades. In the 1990s there has been a weak tendency to a growing proportion of families with three children. The most apparent trend during the following decades will be the rapidly growing number of families without children.
