Quality report: Family law related social services

Data description

Statistical presentation

The Family law services statistics contain quantitative information on agreements concerning child maintenance, custody, residence, rights of access and determination and confirming parenthood. 

Wellbeing services counties provide information on their own operations. The information is supplemented with data from the Digital and Population Data Services Agency, THL’s Forensic Chemistry Unit and the Legal Register Centre.

The statistics are published annually in April. The statistics have been released since 1993. 

Relevance

The purpose of the statistics is to give an overview of the amount of family law services provided.

Through family law agreements and other documents, the statistics also describe parenthood and living conditions of children.

Data content of the statistics

The statistics contain comprehensive information on the numbers of maintenance agreements concluded throughout the country, child custody as well as determination of paternity and confirmation of parenthood. Data at individual level is not collected.

The statistics are compiled from several sources, which are described in Table 1.

The statistics utilise terms that are used in legislation. The status of a child is regulated by the Act on Child Maintenance (704/1975), the Act on Child Custody and Right of Access (361/1983) and, as of 1 January 2023, the Parenthood Act (775/2022), which replaced the previous Paternity Act (11/2015) and Maternity Act 253/2018. 

Statistical processing

Source data

Subject Source
Acknowledgement of parenthood (before and after birth) and withdrawal Digital and Population Data Services Agency
Paternity confirmed in courts     Legal Register Centre

Establishment of parenthood and interruption of the
process

 The wellbeing services counties
Forensic genetic parenthood testing     THL / Forensic Chemistry -unit
Agreements on custody, residence and right of access     The wellbeing services counties
Information on secondary guardians     Digital and Population Data Services Agency 
Child support agreements     The wellbeing services counties
Social reports on family circumstances     The wellbeing services counties
Demographic structure     Statistics Finland
Births     Statistics Finland

Data collection method

The wellbeing services counties submit the data annually in February by separately collecting data on family law services.

Information is requested from other authorities annually in the same format, unless changes in legislation have required reform of the information content.

Data validation

THL primarily checks each wellbeing services county’s data in relation to the previous year data of the wellbeing services county. The aim of validation is to detect possible errors in the delivery of data.

Data compilation

THL uses the submitted data to calculate key figures, such as averages and proportions. Because the data are compiled data, the possibilities for their further processing are limited. If the wellbeing services county is unable to provide comprehensive information for the entire year, for example due to a change in the customer information system, the information can be supplemented either based on the information received or with information from the previous year (imputation). The procedure is agreed upon with a representative of the wellbeing services county.

Data revision

If necessary, data from previous statistical years is updated retroactively in connection with the next statistical publication. In recent years, retrospective corrections to the statistics have played a negligible role.

Quality assessment of the statistics

Accuracy and reliability

The reliability of the information depends on whether the wellbeing services counties have provided the correct information. Typically, some of the data is corrected before the statistics are published. There may also be errors and shortcomings in the published statistics.

The Digital and Population Data Services Agency and the Legal Register Centre are responsible for the quality and accuracy of the information received from them.

A child’s parents may agree on their child’s maintenance, residence, custody or right of access together, without the agreement being brought to the attention of social welfare services for confirmation. Such agreements between parents are not included in the statistics.

Timeliness and punctuality

The statistics are published in April of the calendar year following the statistical year.

Coherence and comparability

The statistics have been released since 1993. Before 2023, the statistics were titled Child maintenance and custody and determination of parenthood. Before the National Institute for Health and Welfare, the statistics were the responsibility of the National Research and Development Centre for Welfare and Health, Stakes and the National Board of Social Affairs and Health.

The wellbeing services counties began operating in 2023. Before this, data was collected by municipality.

Comparability between wellbeing services counties

The data has been collected from the wellbeing services counties in a uniform manner. However, the wellbeing services counties extract the data from their own systems in the manner they see fit. The guidelines for data collection also leave some room for local implementation. In fact, it is quite possible that the data of the wellbeing services counties are not fully comparable.

Although the operations of the wellbeing services counties are governed by the same legislation, the counties implement their obligations in different ways and there are local differences in the service systems.

Comparability by time: data on parentage

The statistics utilise terms used in legislation, which means that the data content has been adjusted to correspond to the content of the relevant act. For this reason, there have been many changes in the information on parenthood in particular, as on 1 January 2023, the Parenthood Act (775/2022) replaced the previous Paternity Act (11/2015) and Maternity Act 253/2018.
the Parenthood Act (775/2022) (in Finnish)

Since 2023, the Digital and Population Data Services Agency (DVV) has submitted information on withdrawals/repudiations of acknowledgement of paternity and on parenthoods confirmed by the Digital and Population Data Services Agency. The data was previously collected from municipalities.

The number of confirmations of paternity in 2023 seems high, especially when the data is compared to the Statistics Finland statistics on the number of children born outside marriage published at a later time.

Since 2023, the Legal Register Centre has submitted information on the number of parenthoods confirmed in courts. The data was previously collected from municipalities. Unlike in previous years, the data of the Legal Register Centre also include confirmations regarding persons over the age of 18. Based on previous data, it can be estimated that adults account for more than half of the court-confirmed paternities.

The data contents preceding the Parenthood, Paternity and Maternity Act and any changes in them can be viewed in the quality descriptions of previous statistical reports.

Comparability by time: data on child support

In 2023, the guidelines for child support agreements were detailed and wellbeing services counties were asked to report the number of children for whom a child support agreement is concluded. In previous years, the number of agreements has been recorded and the same agreement may have included maintenance for several children.

In 2015, the guidelines for child support agreements concerning 0-agreements were detailed. 

In 2009, the payment of child support allowance was transferred from municipalities to Kela, which also reduced its data content. For more information, see Kela’s Statistics on child maintenance allowance page.

Comparability by time: data on child custody and residence

From 2022 onwards, the parents who agreed on joint custody were not asked whether the parents live together or separately. For agreements on custody for one parent, it was not asked whether the parent was the mother, the father or a same-sex spouse. Similarly, for living with one parent, it was not specified whether the parent was the mother or the father. In particular, information on alternating residence is not fully comparable for 2022.

As a result of the legislative amendment that entered into force in December 2019, a person who recognises paternity or maternity before the birth of the child becomes the child's guardian without a separate agreement when parenthood is confirmed on the basis of recognition. Due to the legislative amendment, the numbers of separately concluded agreements on custody, residence and access rights have decreased considerably since 2018.

In 2008, the information content on alternating residence was added. Initially, the data were not available from all municipalities. The information is comprehensive from approximately 2010.

Institutional mandate

The production of the statistics is based on the Act on the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (688/2008) and the Act on Statistics (280/2004). One of the official tasks of the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare is to produce statistical data on the health and welfare of the population, the factors affecting them, and the use and functioning of healthcare and social welfare services to support decision-making, development and research. THL’s statistical production practices are guided by the instructions, recommendations and regulations of Eurostat and the Official Statistics of Finland as well as the principles of statistical ethics.

Data sharing and publishing

The statistics are published on the THL web page thl.fi/en/statistics-and-data/statistics-by-topic/social-services-children-adolescents-and-families/child-maintenance-and-custody. 
Some of the data is also published by wellbeing services county in the statistics and indicator bank Sotkanet. 

The Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare publishes the data in advance at the time indicated in the statistics publication calendar. The data is made public to all users at the same time. Statistics publication calendar

Confidentiality

As an authority, the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare is obligated to report collected data related to health and welfare. The data used to draw up THL’s statistics is primarily confidential, and personal data may not be published. The protection of processed data is based on the Act on the National Institute for Health and Welfare (688/2008), the Statistics Act (280/2004) and the Act on the Openness of Government Activities (621/1999), the EU General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679 and the Data Protection Act (1050/2018)  as well as other statutes guiding the operations of THL.

THL’s datasets are secured at all stages of processing. Data and information systems can only be accessed by persons who have a data permit to use certain data for clearly defined purposes. Others do not have the ability to view, process, change or delete data. Written instructions have been drawn up for ensuring the data protection of completed statistics. All THL personnel who process the data have signed a confidentiality agreement.

The data in the statistics are obtained in a summarised form without direct personal identifiers. 

Special issues concerning the 2025 statistics

Due to a change in the customer information system, information on the agreements in the Ostrobothnia wellbeing services county was only obtained for the period from 1 January to 31 August 2025. The missing data for the four months were estimated and added to the data, that is, the data for the entire year are partially imputed.

Due to a change in the customer information system of the North Karelia wellbeing services county, no detailed information was received on approximately 100 maintenance agreements and agreements concerning the custody, residence and access rights of 40 children. The missing agreements were imputed in the subsections by utilising other information of the wellbeing services county.

A new customer information system has been introduced in the wellbeing services county of North Ostrobothnia, and there were still shortcomings in its data. The agreements on custody, residence and access also include unconfirmed agreements. Agreements  on the right of access may also include agreements concluded with a secondary guardian.

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