Social Insurance Institution of Finland (Kela): Statistics on child maintenance allowances
The Social Insurance Institution (Kela) has been compiling statistics on child maintenance allowance and the recovery of child maintenance payments as of 1 April 2009. Previously, the statistics were compiled by THL from 1 January 2006-31 March 2009, and before that (from 1990 onward) by Statistics Finland as part of the statistics on the economy and operations of municipalities and municipal boards
Keywords
child maintenance allowance
Child maintenance and custody
maintenance payment
security of child maintenance
Classifications
Geographical classification
Municipality, sub-region, region, area for the regional state administrative agency, major region, Mainland Finland/Åland, hospital district, university hospital special responsibility area, whole country
Data content
Child maintenance allowance is a form of support paid by the Social Insurance Institution (Kela) in order to secure maintenance of the child if the child is not receiving child maintenance payments from the liable parent. Until 31 March 2009, this was a form of support for child maintenance payable from municipal resources.
Interpretation
The figures can be supplemented usefully by examining the amount of child maintenance payments recovered, the number of maintenance agreements made and the number of children receiving child maintenance allowance at year end alongside the amount of child maintenance payments.
Restrictions
Prior to the year 2002, data was not received from all municipalities every year; the data for a few of the smaller municipalities may be missing prior to 2002.
