Mental health problems affect a third of women born in Finland in 1997
Benefits agency Kela reports that nearly 34 percent of women born in 1997 had received some form of mental health support by their 28th birthday.
A new study from Finland's benefits agency, Kela, reveals that one in three women born in 1997 have received disability benefits or rehabilitative psychotherapy for mental health or neurodevelopmental conditions by the age of 28. This figure is significantly higher than the 15.3 percent of men in the same birth cohort who received similar support.
Researchers examined data on people born in 1997 who received sickness allowance, rehabilitative psychotherapy, or disability pensions from age 16 until the end of 2025. The analysis covered almost 28,000 women and over 29,000 men who were alive at the start of the follow-up. Miika Vuori, Kela's head of research, noted the striking prevalence of rehabilitative psychotherapy among young women.
The substantial disparity between women and men in the utilization of these benefits prompts further investigation, according to Vuori. This study is believed to be the first of its kind to quantify the prevalence of such support among a single birth cohort in Finland.
Written by urgent.news from Yle News Finland's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
