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The present study examined the profiles of parental perceptions of their child's school adjustment in terms of learning loss and school well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic in Finland. Furthermore, the extent to which the profiles differed with respect to the different children and their family characteristics, as well as their parents' stress about their child's schooling, were examined. Parents (N = 26,313) completed a questionnaire in spring 2021 concerning parental stress and their children's schooling. The five-profile solution was identified using latent profile analysis: (1) slightly-higher-than-average-school-adjustment (n = 8198, 31.2%); (2) high-school-adjustment (n = 3017, 11.5%); (3) slightly-lower-than-average-school-adjustment (n = 5025, 19.1%); (4) low-school-adjustment (n = 6777, 25.7%); and (5) mixed-school-adjustment (n = 3296, 12.5%). The low-school-adjustment profile was overrepresented among parents of boys, older children, and children with special education needs as well as among parents with lower education levels, higher numbers of children, and in single-parent households. In addition, the results showed that parental stress about their child's schooling was associated with their perceptions of their child's school adjustment during the COVID-19 pandemic. Overall, the results demonstrate that parents' views of their children's school adjustment varied widely during the COVID-19 pandemic. At schools, particular attention should be given to at-risk families (e.g., families with low education levels and children with special education needs) in which children may be prone to learning loss and low well-being due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Family background has been shown to be a strong determinant of educational attainment, yet relatively little is known about the role that family background plays in PhD attainment or in the selection into academic careers. In this study, we estimate sibling correlations from Finnish full population register data to comprehensively assess the importance of family background in selection into academia. Our results show that family background accounts for over a third of the overall variation in becoming a PhD and subsequently an academic -- a share which is up to four times as large as implied by conventional comparisons by parental education. However, we did not find evidence that family background would be an exceptionally strong determinant of doctoral outcomes when compared to other educational outcomes. Our findings further suggest that sibling similarities in PhD attainment and academic careers may largely be attributed to sibling similarities in prior educational achievement rather than to other family background characteristics.

The marketisation and privatisation of welfare services such as early childhood education and care (ECEC) have been a global trend in recent decades. Earlier research suggests that market-based ECEC provision often leads to inequalities and stratification of service users. In Finland, as in other Nordic countries where provision of ECEC has traditionally been a public responsibility, ECEC services have also been undergoing marketisation and privatisation. Until now, especially in Finland, little has been known about service users of public and private ECEC or parental decisions between public and private ECEC. This study addresses that gap by showing that the clientele of private and public ECEC differ in their socioeconomic attitudinal characteristics. It appears that the combination of marketisation and privatisation of ECEC extends processes of educational and social distinction into the early childhood.

Early identification of children at risk of developing reading difficulties is crucial for effective interventions. While orthographies and educational contexts differ, predictors included in early at-risk screening tend to remain rather homogeneous across countries. In this study, we compared longitudinal prediction patterns of being among the 20 percent lowest performing in reading fluency by the end of Grade 1 in Norway (N = 918) and Finland (N =378). The two countries differ in orthographic consistency (semi-transparent versus transparent), age at school entry and pre-primary education. Letter knowledge, phoneme isolation and rapid automatized naming (RAN) were unique predictors in the Norwegian sample. Predictors in the Finnish sample were gender, phoneme blending, RAN, and reading status. The predictive model identified significantly more Finnish than Norwegian poor readers (46.2% versus 27.9%). The results suggest national screening instruments that are sensitive to educational context and orthography.

This article explores cross-country patterns in how conditions relating to family background, education, and the labor market are related to literacy and numeracy skills. It seeks to assess whether these patterns are in agreement with models of skills formation as identified in the political economy literature. The novelty of this article resides in a reexamination of the findings in the literature of skills formation and education and training system with new data on adults' skills. This research uses a two-step approach: first it applies Shapley decomposition variance on adult skills and then each country scores are clustered to search for common pattern and regularities in skills formation. This leads us to single out common regularities among groups of countries in the way skills are structured and distributed. We find three main typologies and different subgroups within them that are compatible with the literature on skills formation models.

This article concentrates on the transition from comprehensive school to the upper secondary level from the viewpoint of migrant background girls. Emphasis is on understanding the "bounded agency" and the ways in which gender and family background are expressed in the modalities of the agency. Previous studies show that ethnic minorities have more difficulties in school, and they continue to higher education less frequently than the majority of students. We are interested in the aspirations of migrant background girls (n = 34) concerning their post-comprehensive transition. Our focus is on the experienced agency during the last year of comprehensive school. Our research questions are: What kinds of modalities do migrant background girls use when considering their educational choices? How do these modalities reflect their bounded agency? The study shows that although the experienced agency is universal among the age group, there are specific ethnic and gender connotations.

The article examines policies intended to promote the basic education of Roma and Traveller minorities in Finland, Sweden, and Norway by analysing key national Roma and Traveller policy (n = 5) and education policy documents (n = 3). Analysis shows how the Finnish, Swedish, and Norwegian Roma policies translate the general policy aims of improving the social positioning of people identifying as Roma consistently into policy measures responding to the special needs of Roma pupils. These policy measures are validated by problem representations regarding Roma parents and families. All the policies also problematise the relationship between Roma and Traveller cultures and schools. It is argued that the focuses of the current policy measures constrain opportunities for a change in terms of equality.

One task of the doctoral education is, globally as well as nationally, to produce and renew the highest expertise and knowledge in a high quality and efficient way. Even though in this global time the high-quality knowledge and skills are a competition factor which the success of the societies is expected to be able to lean on, also the doctoral students and their individual factors are significant. The accelerating global change is strongly reflected at the individual level: an attempt is made to respond to the changing expectations and to prepare individually and diversely. The individual doctoral students and the graduating doctors come from different everyday lives and contexts. The graduating doctors' expertise and skills are individually colored during the individual doctoral processes. Often the doctoral students' and the graduating doctors' individuality is ignored--even though individuality in other contexts is identified more clearly than before. In this article I examine the lifecourse experiences and stories of under-40-year-old female doctoral students with a family and form three different types of doctoral student on the basis of the material. The examination concentrates on the areas of the lifecourse; the family, doctoral studies and work as well as on the dynamic wholeness formed by them in the temporal continuum of the lifecourse. The objective is to make the generalized doctoral process more comprehensively intelligible.

This study focuses on flexibly scheduled early childhood education and care (ECEC), an institutional childcare service for Finnish families where both parents, or a single parent, work non-standard hours. Although many countries nowadays offer extended hours day care, only Finland has a publicly provided, law-based system guaranteeing ECEC during non-standard as well as standard hours. We explore, drawing on parental survey data, what kinds of families use such services and when. Furthermore, we utilise web-survey data obtained from early educators to find out what they report as the main challenges involved in implementing flexibly scheduled ECEC. The results showed that single-parent families and lower educated parents were over-represented among the families using flexibly scheduled ECEC. The unpredictability of working-life tends to spill over to ECEC. Due to varying parental work schedules, children have unique daily and weekly rhythms, which in turn impact on administration, pedagogical issues and meeting children's needs.

This study investigated whether a country's policy context for immigrant integration was related to native adolescents' attitudes towards ethnic minorities in European countries, using data from the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study. We found that students in a country with more inclusive and multiculturalist policies for immigrant minorities showed more positive attitudes towards ethnic minorities, compared to their counterparts in a country with less inclusive and multiculturalist policies, even after controlling for individual and country characteristics. We also found a significant interaction effect between family socioeconomic status and immigrant integration policies, suggesting that inclusive immigrant integration policies may trigger different reactions among native adolescents depending on their family background. Theoretical and policy implications of these findings are discussed.

The current study examined the over-time association between externalizing behaviour problems and academic performance during school transition in a cross-lagged design. The main focus was to reveal whether the externalizing behaviour composite and its components separately, including symptoms of CD and ADHD, differ in their relationship with academic performance; and if controlling child- or family-related covariates altered the strength or direction of the relationship. Externalizing behaviour composite was associated with a decrease in academic performance over a 1-year time lag. Academic performance at Grade 6 was associated with low CD symptoms at Grade 7. The effect remained significant when child-related covariates were controlled, but not after controlling family-related covariates. ADHD symptoms systematically had a negative effect on grade 7 GPA, even after child- and family-related covariates were controlled. The results indicate that during early adolescence and school transition, CD and ADHD symptoms differ in their association with academic performance.

We indicate the size of family background effects in Sweden, Finland, and Estonia--countries that differ in both the rhetoric and extensiveness of the system-level school choice policies. Family background effect is defined as the dependence of student achievement on family background characteristics, such as parental education, income, and social status. The number of books at home is used as a proxy when operationalising family background, and its effect is measured as a percentage of individual-level PISA scores. Fixed-effect regression results reveal that family background remains a powerful determinant in the educational results of 15-year-old students in all three cases, being largest in Sweden. Furthermore, we show how the family background effect is moderated by school-level choice policy, that is, how students and schools are matched. The analysis reveals that zoning policies have statistically significant negative effects on the impact of the family background effect, independent of country-level policies.

The study analyses how the educational pathways of ninth graders are constructed by practices of adolescents and their parents in families with different educational statuses. The importance of contextualising the educational transition as it occurs in daily life and socially structured family cultures is emphasised. The research question is: How is the choice of educational route of ninth graders constructed by the practices of the adolescents and the parents in vocational and academic families? What does characterise different pathways and what kinds of distinctions, differences and contrasts of transition practices do exist between them? The interview sample consisted of 16 Finnish families. The interviews were carried out in three forms: a family discussion interview, a thematic interview of the adolescents, and a life-history interview of the parents. The results introduce the main characteristics and distinctions of transition practices of the vocational and academic families.

This study focuses on migrant adolescents' perspective on history education with special reference to their families' home country. The data consist of qualitative interviews with 36 students from various migrant groups (aged 14-16 years). The history of the home country seemed to be significant for the students and they would have wanted to hear about it in school; but in most cases, the main source of information had been family or media.

Objective: To describe the concerns and modes of action of Finnish school nurses during pupils' health check-ups. Methods: Focus group interviews with 17 school nurses were performed in 2011 and again in 2013. Data were analysed using inductive content analysis. Results: School nurses' concerns were mostly associated with the psychosocial development of pupils and with problems in the family, for example, the loss of a parental role. With regard to physical health, school nurses were particularly concerned with obesity among pupils. The new phenomenon of cyberbullying also caused concern. School nurses were able to identify the causes for their concern at school health check-ups, but they were uncertain regarding how they should act and finding the right mode of action and sufficient multidisciplinary support when pupils had problems. Conclusion: The concern of school nurses at health check-ups was mainly associated with pupils' health habits, their psychosocial development and family characteristics, and with addressing the need to taking the health behaviours and well-being of the entire family into consideration during health check-ups. Linked-up processes in school health care and multidisciplinary collaboration within schools are of primary importance in supporting the work of nurses and in promoting pupils' well-being and health.

In Finland, the financial status of a family does not in general place any restrictions on a person's studies. However, in spite of equality of opportunity, class as a cultural and social issue is a significant factor guiding the education of young people. In the article, I analyse women with a working-class background studying at university, starting with experiences of class as it is lived. The data for the study have been generated using the memory work method. The analysis shows how class is manifested in the women's experiences as a sense of themselves as outsiders, being alone or "on their own" and as feelings of inadequacy. The women are forced to find ways of doing things that suit them and to construct a space in which they can feel safe.

This study compares school-related associations in depressive symptoms among children aged between 9-13 years from four schools in Finland and Norway. A total of 523 pupils participated in the cross-sectional survey. The connections between depressive symptoms and school factors were analysed using hierarchical regression analyses. School variables were self-perceived peer victimization, teacher and peer social support, school performance, and teachers' reports on competence in core subjects; these variables explain 30% of the variance of the children's depressive symptoms in Norway and 26% in Finland beyond that afforded by differences in the background characteristics and protective factors in the family. A trend was found in the Norwegian data which showed that poor relationships at school are connected more strongly with depressive symptoms than poor school performance, but the Finnish data did not confirm this. The results support the importance of taking various school factors into account with children suffering depressive symptoms, and not merely a dysfunctional domestic situation. The implications for school psychology practice are also discussed.

In this follow-up study, we evaluated children's communication development at the ages of 8 ("n" = 50), 18 ("n" = 46), 24 ("n" = 44) and 36 months ("n" = 36) using the Finnish version of the "MacArthur Communicative Developmental Inventories" (MCDI). A sample of children ("n" = 14) received family-based intervention 10 times in five months and mother-infant relationship was examined using the "Parent-Child Early Relational Assessment" (PC-ERA) before (at the age of 9-12 months) and after (at the age of 15-18 months) the intervention. The infants' communication skills developed from the use of few words and signs of understanding to that of longer sentences and better grammar during the study period. Specifically, girls scored higher than the boys on the 24-month MCDI. Eight-month-old infants with siblings in the family were more competent than those without siblings, measured using the PC-ERA "infant" variables. However, there were no significant differences in the MCDI or PC-ERA scores between children with and without intervention. (Contains 3 tables and 2 figures.)

Despite the large literature on the long-term effects of parental divorce, few studies have analyzed the effects of parental divorce on spouse selection behavior. However, the characteristics of one's spouse can have important effects on economic well-being and on marital success. We use discrete-time, event-history data from Finnish population registers to study the effects of parental divorce on entry into marriage with spouses who have different educational qualifications (both absolute and relative to one's own education), using conditional multinomial logistic regression models. The results show that Finnish children of divorce have lower rates of marriage than those from intact families. In particular, children of divorce have a lower likelihood of marrying spouses with secondary education or more, and especially low rates of marrying someone with a tertiary degree. The latter gap is smaller among those with tertiary education, as a result of the higher rates of homogamous marriage among the children of divorce with high education. Our findings suggest that children of divorce carry with them traits and behaviors that make them less marriageable candidates in the marriage market. We discuss the possible implications of these findings.

Mutual trust between mothers and kindergarten teachers along with its relation to mother's educational level and child's gender was studied in two neighboring countries--Estonia and Finland. From Estonia 543 ratings of mothers and 232 ratings of teachers were collected, and, from Finland, 712 ratings of mothers and 712 ratings of teachers. Trust was assessed with shortened questionnaires based on the Trust scale. More Finnish than Estonian mothers reported a higher level of trust towards the teacher while no significant difference was found for teachers. The associations between the level of mothers' and teachers' trust and mother's education were different in each country. (Contains 4 tables.)

The theme of this paper is students' interest in future natural sciences-related careers. It is based on data from the Programme for International Student Assessment survey that in 2006 focused attention on the science literacy achievements of students. The paper uses the methods of linear regression modelling and structural equation modelling in analysing the impact of student family background on the formation of interest in future science-related educational and occupational careers relative to the impact of school characteristics. An almost negligible impact of family on interest formation was found in the Czech Republic, Germany, Finland, and Norway. On the other hand, the impact of school from the point of view of preparing students for future educational and career trajectories was found to be strong in all countries studied due to their influence on the degree of student awareness of science-related career opportunities ("science", as used in this paper, refers to the natural sciences). From the educational policy point of view, the results support the importance of career guidance. (Contains 5 tables, 2 figures, and 1 note.)

The "PISA 2006 Science Literacy Assessment" results report Finland as the first ranked country out of the 30 developed nations that participated in the testing (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2007). The United States was ranked 21st. Closer examination of school and student variables may help explain these outcomes. This article will use the PISA 2006 data to investigate how school resource indicators such as teacher qualifications, school resources, and school type, as well as student level indicators such as socioeconomic status and family resources affect science achievement. Comparisons will include the United States, Canada, and Finland. Due to the differences in the structure of educational systems and the makeup of student populations, findings have given an inaccurate impression that international competitiveness in science is not a viable option for the US (Ginsburg, Leinwand, & Pollock, 2007). Findings indicate school funding practices, teacher quality, school type, and family socioeconomic status impact student science achievement and have an effect on international school rankings. (Contains 4 tables.)

A student's choice of a field of study is a personal decision that combines individual tastes, inclinations, preferences, and prospects related to the working life with a number of financial and academic constraints. Therefore, the analysis of the effects of degree field on job satisfaction should also address the unobserved heterogeneity among graduates from different fields. The process of choosing a field of study needs to be analyzed before its endogenous influence on graduates' job satisfaction is assessed. Within this conceptual framework, these authors aim to clarify two main research questions: (1) What are the elements determining the choice of a given field of study?; and (2) Whether and how does field of study influence the distribution of job satisfaction among higher education graduates (HEGs) after controlling for individual heterogeneity? This article is organized as follows. One section provides summaries of literature both on the elements influencing the choice of degree field and on the determinants of job satisfaction. The next section is the empirical section. First, it establishes a choice of field criterion in terms of graduates' family background, earlier education, and life goals. Second, it discusses both the direct and instrumental variable estimation results for the effects of field of study and other determinants on the distribution of job satisfaction among HEGs. The final section provides a summary and conclusions. (Contains 5 tables.)

Background: Education fundamentally shapes an individual's life chances and social status. Duration and level of education are associated with people's incomes, socio-economic status, living standard, lifestyle and the respect and esteem they enjoy. Failure to fulfil educational potential may have long-term consequences for later occupational and social life, as well as creating problems for society at large. Purpose: The aim of this prospective follow-up study was to investigate which health, lifestyle, family and school factors in adolescence had the strongest impact on educational level attained in adulthood. Sample: The original study population included all 9th-grade school pupils aged 16 years attending secondary school in spring 1983 in Tampere, Finland (n=2269). Subjects were followed up at 32 years of age in 1999 (n=1471). Design and methods: In 1983, 2194 pupils (96.7 percent) with a mean age of 15.9 years (SD 0.3 years) completed questionnaires during school hours. The questionnaire included questions about psychological and somatic health, lifestyle, family background, school factors and life events. In 1999, postal questionnaires were sent to the same study population when they were 32 years old. The follow-up questionnaire included basically the same questions about health and lifestyle as in adolescence and age-appropriate versions of questions about social relations and life events. Education was measured by the highest level of attained education. The follow-up cohort totalled 2091 persons (92 percent), and the response rate was 70.3 percent (n=1471). The univariate associations between independent variables in adolescence and attained educational level in adulthood were analysed using the X[superscript 2] test, and Student's t-test where appropriate. Multivariate logistic regression analyses using forward stepwise procedure were used to determine which factors in adolescence had the strongest impact on adult educational level. Results: Several health, lifestyle, family and school factors in adolescence were univariately associated with educational attainment in adulthood. Multivariate analyses showed that, in both genders, low school achievement and manual class of origin were the strongest predictors of low educational level in adulthood. Additional significant predictors among females were poor perceived health status, spending less leisure-time on hobbies and more on dating, and among males, poor relationships with teachers and heavy drinking. Conclusions: Mid-adolescence is an important period for future educational life trajectory. Based on our study results, more attention should be paid to adolescents with school difficulties, unhealthy lifestyle and poor perceived health. It is also important to promote educational equality in relation to family background.

Studied the relationships among students' backgrounds in terms of parental education and socioeconomic level, Finnish linguistic influence, and reading literacy for students in Swedish-speaking schools in Finland. Data from two national studies indicate that home background is more significant for reading literacy than is linguistic background. (SLD)

Examined longitudinally the relationship between earlier risk factors and later problems in young Finnish women's social functioning. Found that low work involvement mediated between risk factors and accumulation of problems in social functioning in young adulthood. Risk factors increased the likelihood of early motherhood, but early motherhood had an indirect effect through work involvement on social functioning problems. (Author/KB)

Examines how family composition, size, and atmosphere; parental control; and the level of parental education and socioeconomic status are associated with children's problems at school. Shows that underachievers came from families with absent natural fathers, lower parental control, and negative atmosphere; overachievers came from intact families with positive atmosphere. (DSK)

Background: Higher cost of healthy foods may explain unhealthy dietary patterns in lower-income households. Unfortunately, combining food selection and nutrient intake data to price and expenditure is challenging. Food retailer's customer loyalty card data, linked to nutrient composition database, is a novel method for simultaneous exploration of food purchases, price, and nutrition., Objectives: We studied the associations between perceived income adequacy (PIA) as a grouping variable with price (per kilogram or megajoule) and the volume of purchases (percentage of expenditure or energy) simultaneously as outcome variables for 17 most purchased food groups., Methods: We used 1-year (2018) loyalty card data from the largest grocery chain in Finland. Participants were 28,783 loyalty cardholders who made ≥41% of food purchases from the retailer and answered an online questionnaire at the midpoint of data collection. The 5-level PIA described the perceived financial situation in the household. Energy and nutrient content of foods purchased were from the Finnish Food Composition Database Fineli. We calculated the Nutrient Rich Food Index per 100 g food using 11 nutrients. Trends in prices and expenditures between PIA levels were analyzed using 2-sided Jonckheere-Terpstra tests, with false discovery rate control (Benjamini-Hochberg method) and confounder adjustments (inverse probability weighting)., Results: Lower PIA participants selected cheaper foods per kilogram and megajoule within most food groups. They also favored unhealthy food groups cheap in energy [<1 € (USD 1.18)/MJ]. Despite lower purchase price, the expenditure (%) among lower PIA was higher on alcohol, snacks, sugar-sweetened beverages, and sweets and chocolates., Conclusions: Participants with lower PIA showed stronger price awareness. It is crucial to consider the pricing of competing alternative food groups, when steering toward environmentally sustainable and healthier food purchases. Package labeling might also direct the selection of healthier choices among the less expensive items within a food group., (Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Background: Family socio-economic factors and parents' health behaviours have been shown to have an impact on the health and well-being of children and adolescents. Family characteristics have also been associated with school nurses' concerns, which arose during health examinations, about children's and adolescents' physical health and psychosocial development. Parental smoking has also been associated with smoking in adolescents. Objectives: The aim of this study was to determine to what extent school nurses' concerns about adolescents' physical health and psychosocial development related to family characteristics are mediated through parents' and adolescents' own health behaviours (smoking). Design: A path model approach using cross-sectional data was used. Settings: In 2008-2009, information about health and well-being of adolescents was gathered at health examinations of the Children's Health Monitoring Study. Participants: Altogether 1006 eighth and ninth grade pupils in Finland participated in the study. Methods: The associations between family characteristics, smoking among parents and adolescents and school nurses' concerns about adolescents' physical health and psychosocial development were examined using a structural equation model. Results: Paternal education had a direct, and, through fathers' and boys' smoking, an indirect association with school nurses' concerns about the physical health of boys. Paternal labour market status and family income were only indirectly associated with concerns about the physical health of boys by having an effect on boys' smoking through paternal smoking, and a further indirect effect on concerns about boys' health. In girls, only having a single mother was strongly associated with school nurses' concerns about psychosocial development through maternal and adolescent girl smoking. Conclusions: Socio-economic family characteristics and parental smoking influence adolescent smoking and are associated with school nurses' concerns about adolescents' physical health and psychosocial development. The findings underline the importance of comprehensively taking into account adolescents' and parents' health behaviours and the family situation in health-care contacts when providing health counselling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rationale The family and the way it functions have a key role for the health and well-being of children and adolescents. Approximately 10-30% of children grow up in families where their health and well-being may be endangered or weakened. There is very little research data on public health nurses' concerns in connection with children's health examinations related to family characteristics. Aim The aim of this study was to investigate the associations of children's gender, age, family structure, mother's employment status and parents' perception on the sufficiency of income with public health nurses' concerns on physical and psychosocial health at children's health examinations. Methods In 2007-2009, information about children's health and well-being and their background factors was collected from the health examinations of altogether 6506 children in Finland using a cross-sectional design. Associations between family characteristics and nurses concern related to physical and psychosocial health and development of children were assessed using logistic regression analysis. Results Physical health and psychosocial issues of school-age children raised most concern in public health nurses. Especially, public health nurses felt concern for the psychosocial development of boys both under and of school age. Family structure and the family's financial situation were associated with public health nurses' concern for children's physical health, psychosocial development and the presence of at least one concern. Conclusion The fact that public health nurses found cause for concern during health examinations was associated with the child's gender, development stage and family characteristic. The research findings may be utilised in planning and targeting health counselling and services in child and school health care. Understanding the role of family characteristics in health and well-being challenges in children is useful in promoting multidisciplinary work in health care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To identify food purchase patterns and to assess their carbon footprint and expenditure., Design: Cross-sectional., Setting: Purchase patterns were identified by factor analysis from the annual purchases of 3435 product groups. The associations between purchase patterns and the total purchases' carbon footprints (based on life-cycle assessment) and expenditure were analysed using linear regression and adjusted for nutritional energy content of the purchases., Participants: Loyalty card holders ( n 22 860) of the largest food retailer in Finland., Results: Eight patterns explained 55 % of the variation in food purchases. The Animal-based pattern made the greatest contribution to the annual carbon footprint, followed by the Easy-cooking , and Ready-to-eat patterns. High-energy , Traditional and Plant-based patterns made the smallest contribution to the carbon footprint of the purchases. Animal-based , Ready-to-eat , Plant-based and High-energy patterns made the greatest contribution, whereas the Traditional and Easy-cooking patterns made the smallest contribution to food expenditure. Carbon footprint per euros spent increased with stronger adherence to the Traditional , Animal-based and Easy-cooking patterns., Conclusions: The Animal-based , Ready-to-eat and High-energy patterns were associated with relatively high expenditure on food, suggesting no economic barrier to a potential shift towards a plant-based diet for consumers adherent to those patterns. Strong adherence to the Traditional pattern resulted in a low energy-adjusted carbon footprint but high carbon footprint per euro. This suggests a preference for cheap nutritional energy rather than environment-conscious purchase behaviour. Whether a shift towards a plant-based pattern would be affordable for those with more traditional and cheaper purchase patterns requires more research.

Background: Although intrahousehold transmission is a key source of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) infections, studies to date have not analysed socioeconomic risk factors on the household level or household clustering of severe COVID-19. We quantify household income differences and household clustering of COVID-19 incidence and severity., Methods and Findings: We used register-based cohort data with individual-level linkage across various administrative registers for the total Finnish population living in working-age private households (N = 4,315,342). Incident COVID-19 cases (N = 38,467) were identified from the National Infectious Diseases Register from 1 July 2020 to 22 February 2021. Severe cases (N = 625) were defined as having at least 3 consecutive days of inpatient care with a COVID-19 diagnosis and identified from the Care Register for Health Care between 1 July 2020 and 31 December 2020. We used 2-level logistic regression with individuals nested within households to estimate COVID-19 incidence and case severity among those infected. Adjusted for age, sex, and regional characteristics, the incidence of COVID-19 was higher (odds ratio [OR] 1.67, 95% CI 1.58 to 1.77, p < 0.001, 28.4% of infections) among individuals in the lowest household income quintile than among those in the highest quintile (18.9%). The difference attenuated (OR 1.23, 1.16 to 1.30, p < 0.001) when controlling for foreign background but not when controlling for other household-level risk factors. In fact, we found a clear income gradient in incidence only among people with foreign background but none among those with native background. The odds of severe illness among those infected were also higher in the lowest income quintile (OR 1.97, 1.52 to 2.56, p < 0.001, 28.0% versus 21.6% in the highest quintile), but this difference was fully attenuated (OR 1.08, 0.77 to 1.52, p = 0.64) when controlling for other individual-level risk factors-comorbidities, occupational status, and foreign background. Both incidence and severity were strongly clustered within households: Around 77% of the variation in incidence and 20% in severity were attributable to differences between households. The main limitation of our study was that the test uptake for COVID-19 may have differed between population subgroups., Conclusions: Low household income appears to be a strong risk factor for both COVID-19 incidence and case severity, but the income differences are largely driven by having foreign background. The strong household clustering of incidence and severity highlights the importance of household context in the prevention and mitigation of COVID-19 outcomes., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Background: A growing number of children live in single-parent families, which seems to be associated with negative effects on a child’s health. Little is known about the health of children in cohabiting two-parent families that are also increasingly common, and more susceptible to family break-up than married two-parent families. This study seeks to determine if family type is associated with child mortality and whether any association remains after controlling for socio-economic factors. Methods: We used longitudinal nationally representative register data from Statistics Finland to study deaths between ages 1–14 years (1780 deaths, N = 201 211) during 1990–2004. The relative effects of family characteristics on mortality were estimated using Cox regression models. Results: Compared with children of married parents, children of single parents carried an excess risk in mortality in ages 1–4 years [Hazard Ratio (HR) 2.02, 95% CI 1.63–2.51] and in ages 5–9 years (HR 1.44, 95% CI 1.15–1.80). The relationship between single parenthood and mortality was largely, but not entirely, explained by associated low parental education and lower household income. Mortality among children in cohabiting-parent families showed no difference from children of married parents. Conclusion: Mainly due to accidental and violent causes of death, the largest excess mortality risks concentrated among children of single, less-educated and less-earning parents. The most vulnerable age period in this respect was early childhood (ages 1–4 years), whereas no association between mortality and family type was found among children aged 10–14 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerous studies have shown that parental divorce is associated with an increase in adult children's divorce risk. We extend this literature by assessing how parental divorce on both sides of a couple is related to their partnership dynamics, specifically, whether there is parental divorce homogamy and whether a history of parental divorce for both partners is associated with increased dissolution risks for cohabiting and married unions. We use Finnish Census Panel data on 28,021 cohabiting and marital partnerships to conduct event-history models that follow individuals between ages 18 and 45. Findings show substantial parental divorce homogamy. Children with experience of parental divorce have 13% greater odds of cohabiting with and 17% greater odds of marrying a fellow child of divorcees, compared with those whose parents have not divorced. Moreover, contrary to evidence from the United States and Norway, our findings for Finland support an additive-rather than multiplicative-association between parental divorce homogamy and union dissolution. Parental divorce homogamy increases offspring's union dissolution risk by 20% for cohabitation and 70% for marriage, compared with couples for whom neither partner's parents are divorced. In Finland, the sizes of these associations are notably weaker than in the United States and Norway, likely because cohabitation and separation are more widespread and socially accepted in Finland, and an expansive welfare state buffers the socioeconomic consequences of divorce., (Copyright © 2021 The Authors.)

We study whether childhood neighbourhood context affects mental health in adolescence in Finland. We also examine heterogeneous effects by family background. By exploiting register data for 1999-2018, we use sibling fixed effects models to gain more robust evidence on the existence of neighbourhood effects. We do not find evidence of an association between neighbourhood characteristics and psychiatric disorders within families. Differences in the effects by family background were not consistent, and variation was mainly found in random effects models. In general, observed family characteristics were strongly associated with psychiatric disorders. This means that interventions should be targeted to children at risk rather than certain neighbourhoods., (Copyright © 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Objectives: Energy drink consumption among adolescents has become a notable global phenomenon, and has been associated with numerous negative health outcomes. In order to understand the popularity of energy drinks among adolescents, and to target interventions, it is important to identify the determinants underpinning consumption. Methods: The nationally representative data (cross-sectional) were drawn from the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) surveys, conducted in 2014 and 2018, each comprising 13- and 15-year-old Finnish adolescents (n = 7405). Results: Weekly energy drink consumption increased among Finnish adolescents between 2014 (18.2%) and 2018 (24.4%), especially among girls. In 2018, boys typically consumed more than girls, and 15-year-olds more than 13-year-olds. Moreover, in 2018, weekly energy drink consumption was more prevalent among 15-year-old adolescents with a non-academic educational aspiration (46.0%) than among adolescents with an academic aspiration (18.3%). Gender (boys more than girls), older age (only in 2018), less parental monitoring, lower school achievement, and a lower level of health literacy explained around 28% of the variance in weekly energy drink consumption in both years. Conclusion: According to the findings, interventions to decrease the energy drink consumption, should be targeted at all adolescents, but especially at those with fewer individual resources. The interventions should also pay attention to family-level factors., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2021 Puupponen, Tynjälä, Tolvanen, Välimaa and Paakkari.)

We explored how consumers value the ecological and socio-cultural benefits of diversified food production systems in Finland. We used a stated preference method and contingent valuation to quantify consumers' willingness to pay (WTP) for the benefits of increased farm and regional scale diversity of cultivation practices and crop rotations. Three valuation scenarios were presented to a representative sample of consumers: the first one focused on agroecosystem services on cropland, the second on wider socio-cultural effects and the third was a combination of them. The results suggest that consumers are willing to pay on the average €228 per household annually for the suggested diversification. This is equal to €245 per hectare of cultivated cropland. The results also indicate that 21% of consumers were not willing to pay anything to support more diverse cropping systems. The relatively high WTP for both agroecological and socio-cultural benefits provide important messages for actors in the food chain and for policy makers on future targeting of economic resources within agri-environmental schemes.

Introduction: Previous studies suggest that childhood experience of parental adversities increases the risk of subsequent offspring self-harm, but studies on distinct paternal and maternal characteristics are few and it remains unclear how these interact with childhood social position. The study aims to assess whether paternal and maternal adversities have different associations with offspring self-harm in adolescence and young adulthood. Interaction by offspring gender and childhood income are investigated, as well as cumulative effects of multiple adversities., Methods: The study uses administrative register data on a 20% random sample of Finnish households with children aged 0-14 years in 2000. We follow children born in 1986-1998 (n=155 855) from their 13th birthday until 2011. Parental substance abuse, psychiatric disorders, criminality and hospitalisations due to interpersonal violence or self-harm are used to predict offspring self-harm with Cox proportional hazards models., Results: The results show a clear increase in the risk of self-harm among those exposed to maternal or paternal adversities with HRs between 1.5 and 5.4 among boys and 1.7 and 3.9 among girls. The excess risks hold for every measure of maternal and paternal adversities after adjusting for childhood income and parental education. Evidence was found suggesting that low income, accumulation of adversity and female gender may exacerbate the consequences of adversities., Conclusions: Our findings suggest that both parents' adversities increase the risk of self-harm and that multiple experiences of parental adversities in childhood are especially harmful, regardless of parent gender. Higher levels of childhood income can protect from the negative consequences of adverse experiences., Competing Interests: Competing interests: All the authors reported grants from Academy of Finland during the conduct of the study., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2019. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.)

Recent advances in medicine and life-expectancy gains have fueled multidisciplinary research into the limits of human lifespan [1-3]. Ultimately, how long humans can live for may depend on selection favoring extended longevity in our evolutionary past [4]. Human females have an unusually extended post-reproductive lifespan, which has been explained by the fitness benefits provided from helping to raise grandchildren following menopause [5, 6]. However, formal tests of whether such grandmothering benefits wane with grandmother age and explain the observed length of post-reproductive lifespan are missing. This is critical for understanding prevailing selection pressures on longevity but to date has been overlooked as a possible mechanism driving the evolution of lifespan. Here, we use extensive data from pre-industrial humans to show that fitness gains from grandmothering are dependent on grandmother age, affecting selection on the length of post-reproductive lifespan. We find both opportunities and ability to help grandchildren declined with age, while the hazard of death of women increased greatly in their late 60s and 70s compared to menopausal ages, together implying waning selection on subsequent longevity. The presence of maternal grandmothers aged 50-75 increased grandchild survival after weaning, confirming the fitness advantage of post-reproductive lifespan. However, co-residence with paternal grandmothers aged 75+ was detrimental to grandchild survival, with those grandmothers close to death and presumably in poorer health particularly associated with lower grandchild survival. The age limitations of gaining inclusive fitness from grandmothering suggests that grandmothering can select for post-reproductive longevity only up to a certain point., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Family is an important setting for development of eating behaviour in childhood. The aim of this study was to investigate associations and direct and indirect pathways between family socioeconomic position (SEP) factors, family type and meal patterns in childhood on weekdays (4-6 meals a day, breakfast skipping, and family dinner). The cross-sectional LATE study was carried out in Finland in 2007-2009. Our dataset comprised 2864 school-aged children (aged ca 7-16 years). Associations between parental BMI, education, labor market status, perceived income sufficiency, family type and childhood meal patterns were first examined by bivariate and multivariate regression analyses separately for children (aged 7-11 years; N = 1920) and adolescents (14-16 years; N = 944). To identify direct and indirect pathways between SEP factors, family type and the three meal pattern variables path analysis was performed. The present study showed that family resources in terms of family type and perceived income sufficiency seemed important in meal patterns in childhood. On the other hand the previously reported strong associations between parental education and meal patterns seemed to a large extend to be mediated through family type. Both children and adolescents living in families experiencing income insufficiency had an increased risk of skipping breakfast and not eating the recommended 4-6 meals a day. Family type and especially single-parenthood was associated with breakfast skipping and fewer family dinners in both age groups and with not-recommended meal frequency among children (7-11 y), respectively. This study showed that there are socioeconomic and family type inequalities in meal patterns in childhood and they are more pronounced during childhood compared with adolescence., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Purpose: Studies that assess the role of mental health for the risk of divorce are scarce and mostly rely on individual-level data, although divorce is a couple-level phenomenon. Using data on couples, we examine the effects of both spouses' psychiatric morbidity on the risk of divorce, and whether socio-demographic factors affect these associations., Methods: We followed 96,222 Finnish married couples for 6 years using register-based data on both spouses and their household. New incidence of psychiatric morbidity and subsequent divorce was identified from dates of prescription medication purchases and hospital admissions, and dates of registered divorce. Socio-demographic factors were measured annually for both spouses and their household. The effect of incident psychiatric morbidity on divorce risk was analyzed using Cox regression., Results: Psychiatric morbidity in men increased the age-adjusted risk of divorce more than twofold and in women nearly twofold. The risk of divorce was particularly pronounced immediately after new incidence of psychiatric morbidity, before settling to a persistently high level. Psychiatric morbidity in both spouses increased the risk of divorce almost threefold. Adjustment for socio-economic factors had little effect on these associations., Conclusions: Psychiatric morbidity is a persistent risk factor of divorce. The risk is larger when both spouses experience psychiatric morbidity compared to only one spouse. The findings are consistent with the idea that poor relationship quality and dissatisfaction in couples suffering from mental health problems have long-term consequences for marital stability. Treatment of psychiatric morbidity should not focus only on the individual but on couple-level dynamics.

Background: Studies investigating dietary resemblance between parents and their children have gained mixed results, and the resemblance seems to vary across nutrients, foods, dietary-assessment tools used, and parent-child pairs. We investigated parent-child dietary resemblance using a novel approach in applying statistical analysis, which allowed the comparison of 'whole-diet' between parents and their children. Additionally, we sought to establish whether sociodemographic factors or family meals were associated with dietary resemblance and whether parent-child dietary resemblance was dependent on the parent providing food consumption data on behalf of the child (father or mother, "the respondent")., Methods: The DAGIS study investigated health behaviors among Finnish preschoolers using a cross-sectional design. One parent filled in a food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) measuring the child's food consumption outside preschool hours during the last week. In addition, we instructed both parents or legal guardians, should the child have two, to fill in a similar FFQ regarding their own food use. Parents also reported their educational level, the number of children living in the same household, and the number of family meals. As a measure of dietary resemblance between a parent and a child, we computed Spearman correlations ranging mostly from no resemblance (0) to complete resemblance (+ 1) between parent-child pairs over the 'whole-diet' (excluding preschool hours). These resemblance measures were further investigated using linear mixed models., Results: We obtained 665 father-child and 798 mother-child resemblance measures. Mother-child resemblance was on average 0.57 and stronger than father-child resemblance (0.50, p < 0.0001), which was explained by a parent-respondent interaction: the diet of the child resembled more the diet of the parent who provided food consumption data for the child. In univariate models, father- and mother-reported number of family meals were positively associated with father-child and mother-child resemblances. Mother-reported number of family meals was positively associated with mother-child resemblance in a full model., Conclusions: The diet of the child seems to resemble more the diet of the parent responsible for the reporting of food consumption. Studies should report who provided the food consumption data for the child and take this into account in analyses, since reporter-bias can influence the results.