One in three women born in Finland in 1997 had received mental health-related sickness allowance, disability pension or rehabilitative psychotherapy by age 28, according to an analysis by Kela. The corresponding share among men was 15.3 per cent, compared with 33.9 per cent among women.
The findings cover more than 57,000 people and track their use of the selected benefits and psychotherapy from age 16 until the end of 2025.
Kela said the analysis is believed to be the first in Finland to measure the use of these forms of support across a single birth cohort during adolescence and early adulthood.
Mental health-related sickness allowance was the most common form of support included in the study. A quarter of women had received the allowance, compared with 12 per cent of men.
The difference was larger for rehabilitative psychotherapy. Some 16 per cent of women, or around one in six, had received Kela-supported psychotherapy. The figure among men was below four per cent. Half of those who had received rehabilitative psychotherapy had also received sickness allowance.
“What stands out in particular is how common the use of rehabilitative psychotherapy was among young women. At the same time, the large gap compared with men raises questions,” Kela head of research Miika Vuori said.
Disability pensions showed a different pattern. Some 3.5 per cent of women and 3.4 per cent of men had received a temporary or permanent disability pension, leaving little difference between the groups.
The diagnoses associated with those pensions differed. An intellectual disability or neurodevelopmental diagnosis formed part of the grounds for a pension among 62 per cent of male recipients and 37 per cent of female recipients.
Kela uses mental health as a broad category in disability pension statistics. The classification also includes neurodevelopmental conditions and intellectual disabilities.
Vuori said benefit registers should not be treated as a direct measure of the population’s mental health.
“Official registers measure the use of benefits and services, not mental health or mental health problems directly,” he said.
Researchers examined more than 28,000 women and 29,000 men born in Finland in 1997 who were alive and living in the country when the follow-up period began.
Kela said further research is needed into how support needs among young women and men are identified and how education, workplaces and other settings respond to those needs.
HT
