Interview with Kristiina Paju, president of the association
The Finnish Federation of Families with Children (Lape) is a national association that acts as a guardian of the interests of families with children and a channel for influencing them. The association takes a position on current issues of concern to families with children and provides information to decision-makers.
Lape’s main goals are:
- promote the emotional and financial well-being of families with children
- help parents fulfill their role as their children’s primary educators
- help parents find solutions that best suit each family’s own life situation, so that children can grow up to be emotionally and morally balanced and responsible citizens
- act as a guardian and influencer, independent of party politics and religion, so that the financial and other needs of families with children are taken into account in social decision-making
- raise the child’s voice when decisions are made about children’s matters
- take a position on current issues for families with children
- make initiatives and statements regarding the needs and wishes of families with children to social decision-makers
- strive for cooperation with other organizations, both domestic and foreign
- maintain and promote mutual communication and cooperation between families with children
Regional activities are spread across several locations across Finland. The organization’s members plan their activities and keep in touch with each other mainly via email, telephone and social media. Live meetings are also organized. Both locally and nationally, the organization acts as a guardian of the interests of families with children and is in contact with decision-makers on issues affecting families with children, such as daycare issues, receiving home help, and family benefits.
3 Plus families
Finland’s demographic structure is becoming dangerously skewed as the population ages and not enough children are currently being born to ensure continuity. To ensure continuity, the average number of children per family should be 2.1, so 3+ children are crucial for population renewal. More than half of the children are or will be from families with at least three children. Despite the great importance of children in these families, it is currently becoming increasingly expensive for their parents to raise future workers and taxpayers, as the consumption expenditure, amount of care work and space requirements for such a number of children differ significantly from the usual family situation.
From a societal perspective, it does not seem very wise, for example, to tax households more the more future workers and taxpayers it generates. This approach can easily result in the loss of children and taxes altogether, and a shrinking future taxpayer base. Parents are of course primarily responsible for their income and also for the number of children they have. However, if the birth rate is not sufficient to renew the population, for example because having more than three children leads to a clearly lower income, then society is also justified in contributing to the equalization of the costs resulting from children.
3+ theme goals:
- Raise public awareness of the importance of families with children, especially families with at least three children, as the pillars of a welfare society. Use research results to show the conditions of families with children and the shortcomings in the targeting of family benefits as the demographic structure shifts.
- Initiate a social debate on the need to change family policy and taxation so that parents have more time for their children instead of being forced to earn an income.
- Clarify the basic economic reasons behind the postponement of family formation and the number of children in a family falling below the level needed for population renewal.
- Promote the acceptance of home care work for children as work that entitles them to income and pension.
- Work to obtain child-specific tax deductions for families.
- Demonstrate through calculations the importance of public administration in reconciling family and work, especially through taxation.
- Promote the updating of child benefits with indexation for the entire childhood period and the receipt of study grants sufficient for the entire period of parental support responsibility.
The interview
The interviewer is Tanishka Enugu, an intern at ELFAC.