Prime Minister Petteri Orpo’s Government Programme

The Government Programme of June 2023 includes initiatives related to pensions:

• Stabilising long-term pension insurance contribution levels and significantly strengthening public finances over the long term through a rules-based stabilisation system: A working group was established in the fall of 2023 to investigate the reform of the earnings-related pension system. The working group’s term ended on 31 January 2025. The group proposed, among other things, increasing the share of equity investments, limiting index adjustments during high inflation with a certain formula, and increasing funding. Legislative preparation has begun in February 2025.
• Partial disability pensions and full disability pensions will be aligned with earnings from work so that working while on a pension is always beneficial: The working group aims to reach a solution in the spring of 2025.
• The job alternation leave system and the adult education support system will be discontinued: This change has been implemented.
• An evaluation of the need for reforming the YEL system will be initiated: An investigator has been appointed and has until the end of November 2025 to assess the matter.
• As part of the government’s savings goals, the minimum age for Kela pensions and certain other benefits will be raised from 16 to 18 years and the payment of Kela old-age and disability pensions abroad will be discontinued: The increase in the qualifying age came into effect at the beginning of 2025, and the payments abroad were discontinued as of the beginning of February 2025.

Read more on Etk.fi:

• 2025 Pension reform

Overall reform of social security

An overall reform of social security written in the 2019 Government Programme was launched in the spring of 2020. A parliamentary committee that will prepare this reform was appointed in March 2020. Its term of office is from 23 March 2020 to 31 March 2027.

Research Professor Pasi Moisio (Finnish institute for health and welfare) chairs the committee. Mikko Kautto (Finnish Centre for Pensions) was the permanent expert member of the committee in its first term. The main committee was assisted during its first term of office by five divisions, of which three include representatives of the Finnish Centre for Pensions. The committee’s mid-term report was published in March 2023. The 2023 Government Programme’s entries that relate to, among other things, simplifying social security and developing one basic security benefit are based on this mid-term report.

During the second term of the committee, the expert member from the Finnish Centre for Pensions is Head of Department Susan Kuivalainen. The Ministry of Social Affairs and Health has also appointed an assessment and investigating group for the committee. The group’s task is to conduct evaluations and investigations, and to assist in the planning and coordination of more extensive investigations and research projects required for the committee’s work. The Finnish Centre for Pensions’ representative in this group is Senior Researcher Ilari Ilmakunnas.

Social security reform – Ministry of Social Affairs and Health (stm.fi)