Finnish conscripts included in OECD figures on idle at-risk youth

Statistics Finland analyses fresh figures

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When the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) asked national statistics centres for information on idleness of young people aged 15 to 18, the figures put out by the organisation earlier this week appear to have included Finnish conscripts among at-risk youth in danger of becoming marginalised from society.
      Helsingin Sanomat reported on Thursday on the figures put out by the OECD in its Factbook. The publication gave a very bleak assessment of Finnish boys in particular.
      According to the figures, 13 percent of Finnish males aged 15 to 19 were neither at work, nor at school.
     
The numbers caused a stir at Statistics Finland. Already before noon, the honour of Finnish male youth was restored; the proportion of those who really were without work or schooling at the time that the figures were taken, in the first quarter of 2003, proved to be just seven percent.
      According to the calculations of Statistics Finland, 6.1 percent of girls were neither at work nor in a classroom.
     
"The instructions given by the OECD did not state that those who are in the Defence Forces should be left out", said Heidi Melasniemi-Uutela, who examined the numbers on Thursday.
      This factor is mentioned in the OECD Factbook, but there are also assurances that classifying conscripts as either employed, or as students would hardly change the figures put out by the organisation.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  OECD gives bleak assessment of state of Finnish teenage boys (30.3.2006)

Helsingin Sanomat