FACTFILE: Nurses in Norway have more money to live on
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Virpi Lapinoja's salary, including extras, is more than EUR 39,000 a year.
Pekka Lapinoja works as a substitute for a ward nurse. His gross annual pay is about EUR 42,000.
Both pay 30 percent in income tax. The two pay about EUR 1,000 to pay off their home loan.
Other fixed expenses include about EUR 1,000 a year to the municipality, which covers water, street maintenance, chimney cleaning, and waste disposal. Electricity costs about EUR 2,500 a year.
The Lapinojas have hired a nanny, and get assistance for home help. If the three children were in municipal day care, they would pay about EUR 9,000 a year for the service.
The cost of living in Norway is about 20-30 percent higher than in Finland. The Lapinojas have calculated that they nevertheless take home more than one third more pay than they would in Finland.
Last year, TEHY, the Union of Health and Social Care Professionals, calculated that total earnings of nurses in Finland in 2004 were about 2,250 a month.
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 18.4.2006
More on this subject:
 Nurses leave Norway to send children to Finnish school
BACKGROUND: Fewer Finnish nurses moving abroad
Helsingin Sanomat
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