Take-up of child home care allowance continued to decline last year – Kela Statistical Yearbook offers a comprehensive selection of data on the use of social security in 2022

Kela paid child home care allowance in 2022 to a total of 80,000 persons. Half of all children under school age were enrolled in municipal day care at the end of the year. This information can be found in the newly published 2022 edition of Kela Statistical Yearbook.

For the first time ever, the number of recipients of child home care allowance dropped below 80,000 in 2022. Last year, Kela made statutory child home care allowance payments to 79,878 persons for a total of 97,677 children. The number of recipients decreased three percent from the previous year. The share of men among recipients of the child home care allowance was 8.5 percent.

 

Kela paid child home care allowance for 45,551 children at the end of the 2022, representing 36 percent of the children between nine months and two years of age. A regional analysis shows that the percentage of children whose care was subsidised by the child home care allowance ranged between 31 and 44 percent, being lowest in Lapland and highest in Central Ostrobothnia.

Child home care allowance is payable for children under 3 who are not in municipal early childhood education. The allowance can also be paid for any siblings under three who are in home care.

Half of all children up to 6 years of age were enrolled in municipal day care at the end of 2022. A little over nine percent of families were awarded a service voucher for private early childhood education services. The use of such services has increased somewhat over the last several years. 

At the end of 2022, 2.8 percent of children up to six years of age were enrolled in municipal family day care. The number of such children has decreased steadily for several years. As recently as in 2018, 4.7 percent of children were in municipal family day care.

Information about the benefits paid by Kela can be found in Kela Statistical Yearbook 

Information about benefits for families with children can be found in the newly published 2022 edition of Kela Statistical Yearbook. 

It offers comprehensive statistical information on the social security schemes administered by Kela. The Yearbook also describes the benefits that Kela provides and lays out their eligibility criteria. The changes made in benefits over the years are outlined in the appendixes to the Yearbook.

Kela Statistical Yearbook was first published in 1965.

Additional information

2022 edition of Kela Statistical Yearbook (helda.helsinki.fi)