HELSINKI, Sept 7: Finland, one of the most developed models of Europe, faces a challenge to meet the needs of its ageing population while ensuring its long-term fiscal sustainability.
Finland has one of the most rapidly ageing populations in Europe and the world. By 2030, Finland is projected to have 26 per cent of its population over 65 years of age. This is a figure that the UK, for example, is not due to reach until 2051, a recent study said.
After 95 years of independence, the standard of living in Finland has risen considerably and in consequence brought the mortality rate down year by year. While the statistical life expectancies of men and women born in Finland towards the late 1910s were 43 years and 49 years, the respective life expectancies have today risen to 76 years for men and 83 years for women.
The phenomenon faced by many European countries is being keenly debated in the country like Finland whose economic model based on the exports has been more than successful.
The policy makers and the stakeholders have already turned to the solution of the problem in Finland where the retirement age is 63 years with lots of welfare mechanism in the place.
The rate of mortality among children under the age of 12 months
has also declined enormously in nine decades. When Finland gained independence, one child in ten in the country died in their first year of life, whereas today the infant mortality rate is under 0.5 per cent. Although the growth in life expectancy is not among the very highest in the world in Finland, the country’s infant mortality rate is one of the lowest in the world.
The Internatioanl Monetary Fund (IMF) has also warned this Nordic country to mitigate expected rises in health and long-term care costs associated with population ageing. “Finland should also tighten the way benefits are paid to the elderly and unemployed until early retirement, as well as increasing the legal minimum and maximum retirement ages,” the IMF said. (UNI)
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