The Swedish-speaking Finns amount to almost 300,000 people (5.6 % of the total population), the majority of which resides in the coastal areas of southern and western Finland. Around 12,000 (4 %) live in unilingual Finnish municipalities in other parts of the country. The Åland Islands are a unilingual Swedish self-governing province outside the west coast of Finland, and the home of around 26,000 people.

The Swedish and the Finnish-speaking population are similar in terms of occupation and housekeeping, as the majority works either in the public sector or in service occupations. The Swedish-speaking Finns are represented in all vocational groups, although the percentage of Swedish-speaking Finns is somewhat higher within trade and agriculture.

According to demographics, the future of the Swedish-speaking population of Finland appears somewhat brighter than it did a few years ago. The heavy decline of Swedish-speaking Finns that was predicted in the 1960's and 1970's has not occurred. Rather, the Swedish population in Finland is giving birth to more children than the average entire population, the emigration to Sweden has virtually come to a halt, and an increasing number of bilingual families register as Swedish speaking and enlist their children in Swedish schools.

Day care and pre-school in Swedish is an obvious choice for Swedish-speaking families as well as for many bilingual families. The availability of education in Swedish is a prerequisite for the survival and growth of the Swedish language and culture in Finland. This is guaranteed through the maintenance of a Swedish School Board equal to the Finnish one. Read more.