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The news service is sponsored by SAK, the largest central trade union in Finland, and ten of its 23 affiliated unions.

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Trends at work:
More days off but longer working days

Helsinki (23.02.2002 - Juhani Artto) Statistics Finland has conducted three thorough surveys into how the Finns use their time. A comparison between the results of these surveys* illustrates how time use patterns changed in the 1980s and 1990s.

The averages in the six major categories appear to show that very little has changed. Broadly speaking, the average day has remained as follows:

studying - one hour
housework (cleaning, cooking, childcare etc.) - almost three hours
gainful work - between three and half and four hours
eating & personal hygiene - two hours
leisure - almost six hours
sleeping - about eight and half hours

This is how the Finns, aged 10 to 64 years, spent an average 24 hours in the late 1970s, in the late 1980s and in the late 1990s. These averages, however, conceal several important changes.

More days off but longer working days

Among the employed there is a tendency to take more days off work, but to have longer working days. This can be seen in the following table:

	1979	1987	1999
	%	%	%
Not working	25	27	30
Less than 4 hours	9	6	5
4-6 hours	10	9	8
7-8 hours	35	33	29
9-10 hours	17	18	20
11 hours or more	4	7	8

The two tendencies match for both men and women.

Fewer annual working hours for blue-collar workers and men, more for salaried staff and women

Among those in work, certain annual working hour disparities have narrowed, as the following table demonstrates:

	Men (hours/year)		Women (hours/year)
	1987/88	1999/00	1987/88	1999/00
Agricultural entrepreneur	2446	2409	1551	1722
Other entrepreneur	2202	2287	612	1752
Senior salaried staff	1880	1965	1503	1442
Junior salaried staff	1801	1849	1497	1563
Blue-collar workers	2038	1904	1563	1478

Shorter annual working hours have been prolonged (for women and salaried staff) and longer annual working hours have been reduced (for men and blue-collar workers). However, this general rule has some exceptions, as the table indicates.

Fewer hours per week for combined gainful and housework

The combined time spent in gainful work and housework by both men and women decreased by three hours over a twelve-year period (1987/1988-1999/2000).

	Men (hours/year)		Women (hours/year)
	1987/88	1999/00	1987/88	1999/00
Gainful work	28	24	19	16
Housework	16	17	27	26
Together	44	41	45	42

Employment rate down

The reduction in average gainful working hours is mainly due to a significant fall in the employment rate.

Over the period from 1989 to 1999 the employment rate of those aged between 15 and 64 years fell from 74 to 66 per cent. The employment rate fell from 77 to 68 per cent for men and from 72 to 64 per cent for women. Unlike the other EU countries, female participation in working life did not increase in Finland in the 1990s. By comparison, over the period from 1979-1987 it increased by 10 per cent.

The employment rate of young people clearly fell more than that of the older age segments. In 1987, those aged 15 to 24 years worked an average of 18 hours per week, but by 1999 this had fallen to no more than 12 hours.

Between 1989 and 1999 there was a clear fall in the number of people in gainful employment, and the number of unemployed people, students and pensioners correspondingly increased (all figures for the population aged 15 to 74 years).

	1989	1999
Gainfully employed	2,507,000	2,296,000
Unemployed	80,000	261,000
Students	273,000	325,000
Homemakers	105,000	100,000
Pensioners	760,000	908,000
Total	3,725,000	3,890,000

As elsewhere in the world, the number of Finnish pensioners will also grow rapidly in coming years. This is evident in the light of the 1987/1988-1999/2000 changes in the age structure of the employed. In all age segments of those aged 15 to 44 years the number of employed people fell by 17 per cent or more. The segment from 45 to 49 years of age grew by almost 30 per cent and that between 50 and 54 years rose by 42 per cent.

Slow narrowing of the housework gap

The international trend is for housework done by women to fall and for that done by men to increase. Finland has followed the same pattern and this tendency continued in the 1990s:

	1987/1988	1999/2000
Men	2 h 15 min	2 h 27 min
Women	3 h 50 min	3 h 47 min

However, housework performed by men decreased in the younger age segments (10 to 24), so the average growth was due to an increase in the older segments. Up to the age of 75 years, the figures for men imply a rule of "the older you are, the more daily hours you put into housework".

The corresponding changes within various age segments among women were tiny.

More television, less socialising

Significant changes have taken place since the late 1980s in the use of leisure time. Television viewing has increased its share of leisure time from 27 per cent to 35 per cent. The proportion of leisure time spent in socialising (with family members, friends etc.) has shrunk from 23 to 17 per cent. Also reading and (focused) radio listening went down, while physical exercise, hobbies and relaxation went up.

*Iiris Niemi, Hannu Pääkkönen, Ajankäytön muutokset 1990-luvulla [Changes in Time Use in the 1990s], Tilastokeskus [Statistics Finland] 2001.

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