Mental health problems in Finland affected a significant share of women born in 1997, with more than one in three receiving disability-related benefits or rehabilitative psychotherapy for a mental health or neurodevelopmental condition by the age of 28, according to new figures from Kela.
The proportion among men in the same birth cohort was considerably lower. By their 28th birthday, 33.9 percent of women and 15.3 percent of men had received at least one of the benefits or services examined in the analysis.
The figures come from a Kela study that followed people born in Finland in 1997 from age 16 through the end of 2025. Researchers looked at the use of sickness allowance granted on mental health grounds, rehabilitative psychotherapy and different forms of disability pension.
The analysis provides a picture of how mental health-related support is used as people move from adolescence into early adulthood. Rather than examining individual diagnoses alone, the researchers focused on whether people had received financial benefits or rehabilitative psychotherapy because of mental health or neurodevelopmental conditions.
The difference between women and men was particularly pronounced in the use of rehabilitative psychotherapy. Kela’s head of research, Miika Vuori, said the frequency of psychotherapy among young women stood out in the findings, while the substantial difference between the sexes also raised questions.
The study covered everyone born in Finland in 1997 who was alive when the follow-up began. The group consisted of just over 28,000 women and more than 29,000 men, giving the researchers a broad view of the experiences of an entire birth cohort rather than a sample of the population.
The findings also show how common contact with the social security and rehabilitation system can become during the transition from adolescence to adulthood. For some people, support may involve temporary sickness benefits or psychotherapy, while others may receive longer-term disability-related support.
Kela said the analysis is believed to be the first in Finland to examine, within a single birth cohort, how many people received these particular benefits or rehabilitative psychotherapy during adolescence and early adulthood.
The figures do not mean that one in three women in the cohort had the same condition or experienced mental health difficulties in the same way. They measure the number of people who had received at least one of the forms of support included in the study. The results therefore provide an indication of the level of mental health-related need reaching the benefits and rehabilitation system, rather than a complete measure of mental health among the entire generation.
Still, the scale of the difference between women and men is notable. By age 28, the share of women who had received one of the specified forms of support was more than twice the corresponding share among men.
The findings add to the picture of how mental health and neurodevelopmental conditions are affecting young people as they enter adulthood in Finland. They also point to questions about why young women are using rehabilitative psychotherapy and other forms of mental health-related support at substantially higher rates than their male peers.
For policymakers and researchers, the birth-cohort approach offers another way to examine these issues. Following people from adolescence into their late twenties makes it possible to see how the need for support develops over an important period of education, employment and transition into independent adult life.
Kela’s research does not, by itself, establish the reasons behind the gender difference. It does, however, document the extent to which mental health-related benefits and rehabilitation have been used by members of the 1997 birth cohort, providing a detailed snapshot of one generation’s experience with Finland’s social security and rehabilitation system.
