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Finland Table of Contents

Finland

Income Security Programs Classified as Social Insurance

Finland, like the other Nordic countries, divided most of its social programs into those that guaranteed income security and those that provided social and health services. Income security programs came in two categories: social insurance, which provided income despite old age, illness, pregnancy, unemployment, or work-related injuries; and income security classified as welfare, which consisted of income transfers to aid families through measures such as child payments, maternity grants, payments to war victims and their survivors, and financial aid to those afflicted by disability or pressing needs. Programs of the first category, income security guarantees, took some 80 percent of the funds expended for social welfare (see table 10, Appendix A).

Data as of December 1988