Law and Family Diversity

A family consisting of parents of the opposite sex and their biological children has been the basis for family and social welfare legislation. However, people’s lives do not always coincide with this presumption; family structures are more diverse than the current legislation acknowledges.

This study investigates the legal challenges faced by families that differ from the normative family structure (divorce families, single-parent families, blended families, LGBTQ+ families, adoptive families, foster families, and co-parenting families) and proposes solutions to said challenges. In addition, the research project aims to evaluate the prevalence of each identified challenge, how the significance of the challenge should be evaluated, and whether there are alternatives to the proposed solutions.

This consortium project collects different data (e.g. survey data, focus groups interviews, legal texts, reports, preparatory legislative documents). The subproject carried out by Kela Research focuses on the challenges faced by diverse families when dealing with social security benefits. The project is funded by VN TEAS, the Government’s analysis, assessment, and research activities. 

Researcher

• Ella Sihvonen, Leading Researcher

Project Implementation Period

3/2022–3/2023 The project has ended.

Project Results

This project examined what kinds of issues legislation poses for diverse families with children and how these issues can be resolved. During the project, six surveys were conducted on families, and the study design was established based on issues identified from survey responses and in the project’s mandate. Solutions to the identified issues were sought by conducting a legal analysis and an international comparison.

The study examined challenges posed by legislation at the stage of establishing a family with children, at the boundaries of legal and de facto parenthood, in the organisation of daily life among families with children, and in terms of the social security system. The section of the project that looked at social security benefits focused especially on benefits related to child maintenance and care. While diversity in the methods of child maintenance is more challenging to account for, the diversity of care relationships involving children can be taken into account more easily in social security benefits. The members of a larger family network than just the child’s legal parents are already able to apply for care-related benefits as a result of the reasonably flexible eligibility criteria for care-related social security benefits. However, legislation is not fully inclusive or consistent, and discrepancies are not easily explained by benefit legislation and the underlying purpose for different benefits without room for critique.

The report presents a total of 25 proposals for the development of future legislative work and research, some of which relate to social security benefits. 

Publications

• Research Publication: Law and Family Diversity

Cooperation Partners

• Read more on the project (in Finnish) from Väestöliitto (vaestoliitto.fi)
• Sateenkaariperheet ry – Families in all colours of the rainbow (sateenkaariperheet.fi)
• Diverse Families Network (monimuotoisetperheet.fi)
• Read more on the project (in Finnish) – Laki ja perheiden monimuotoisuus selvitys- ja tutkimushanke (tietokayttoon.fi)