No abstract

Social assistance receipt is typical among young adults, but the long‐term trajectories of social assistance receipt have been less studied. We use Finnish population register data to study the kinds of social assistance trajectories found among young adults. We also analyze how individual and family characteristics are associated with the likelihood of following different social assistance trajectories. Individuals are followed from the age of 19 to 25. According to the results, social assistance receipt is relatively common among young adults but spell duration is usually short. Around 35% receive social assistance at least once between the ages of 19 and 25, and 2.5% receive social assistance each year. Using latent class growth analysis, we estimated six trajectories based on the annual number of social assistance months: (1) no receipt; (2) transitory; (3) slow exit; (4) occasional; (5) increase; and (6) dependency. Almost 4% of young adults follow the “dependency” trajectory. The results from multinomial logistic regression indicate that having only a short education is a particularly strong predictor of social assistance dependency. Parental social assistance receipt and moving out of the parental home at a young age are also significant predictors of social assistance receipt.

Social background may affect not only individuals’ wellbeing, but also their ability to manage the typical and problematic transitions occurring during young adulthood. Hence, this article has used Finnish population register data to analyse how social background and critical life‐course factors predict the number of months of social assistance received annually among young adults aged 19–29. Special interest was given to asking whether those with a disadvantaged social background are more vulnerable to the effects of critical life‐course factors. The results showed that social background and critical life‐course factors have independent effects on social assistance receipt. Additionally, this study shows that the effects and the incidence of critical life‐course factors can be affected by social background.

This paper aims to analyze the patterns of poverty and housing overcrowding among immigrant children in Finland. We seek to explore whether and to what degree foreign-born children are disadvantaged relative to native children in terms of income poverty and overcrowded housing. Another main objective is to study the pattern of immigrant child poverty and overcrowding in the first years of settlement. We distinguish between four different types of poverty trajectories in the first five years after arrival in Finland: 1) no experience of poverty; 2) poor in up to two out of five years following arrival (mostly non-poor); 3) poor in three or four out of five years following arrival (mostly poor); and 4) poor in all five years (chronic poverty). An analogous classification is applied when looking at housing overcrowding. We use data from a compilation of Finnish registers, which contain annual information on all individuals who resided in Finland at any point between 1995 and 2014. The results of a series of logistic regressions shows that the relative disadvantage of immigrant children relative to native children is more pronounced in terms of income poverty than in terms of housing. The most frequent outcome in terms of income poverty in the first years of settlement is no experience of poverty, followed by chronic poverty, i.e., poverty in all five years after arrival. The same patterns are found for overcrowding. The multivariate analyses, based on generalized ordered logistic regressions, show substantial heterogeneity across immigrant groups.