Education level highest in Uusimaa, lowest in Kainuu

A total of 3,287,272 persons, or 71 per cent of the population aged 15 or over had completed a post-comprehensive level qualification by the end of 2016, according to Statistics Finland.

The share of persons with qualifications remained unchanged from the previous year. The population with the highest education lived in Uusimaa, where 37 per cent of the population had completed a tertiary level qualification.

In addition to Uusimaa, the population with the highest education in 2016 lived in Pirkanmaa, where 32 per cent of the population had completed a tertiary level qualification and in Varsinais-Suomi, where the share of those with a tertiary level qualification in the population was 30 per cent.

In Mainland Finland the share of those with tertiary level qualifications was lowest in Kainuu, where 24 per cent of the population had completed a qualification. Similarly, 24 per cent of the population had completed a tertiary level qualification in Åland. Women were more highly educated than men in all regions.

In 2016, there were 115,071 persons aged 20 to 29 with only basic level education, making up 17 per cent of the age group. Among men, 19 per cent of the age group had only basic level education and 15 per cent among women. The share of those with only basic level education was at its lowest at the beginning of the 2000s when it was 16 per cent. The number of persons aged 20 to 29 with only basic level education was highest in Uusimaa, where 21 per cent of the age group had no post-comprehensive level qualification. The share of persons with only basic level education was lowest in South Ostrobothnia, where 12 per cent of those aged 20 to 29 had no post-comprehensive level qualification.

Second generation immigrants with foreign background, i.e. those born in Finland, are mainly young people. In all, 76 per cent of second generation immigrants with foreign background belonged to the age group 15 to 24, whose studies were only beginning.

Altogether 70 per cent of second generation immigrants with foreign background aged 20 to 24 had completed a qualification, which is 13 percentage points lower than the share of those with qualifications among the population in the same age group.

Among second generation immigrants with foreign background, those aged 35 to 45 had the highest education, as 44 per cent of them had completed a tertiary level qualification.