Supporters and dependants: the concept of economic dependency ratio as an indicator of changes in regional structures in Finland in 1989-1997

Abstract

An examination is made of the concept of economic dependency ratio and its applicability as a tool for analysing changes in regional structures in Finland against the background of the unprecendented rise in unemployment from 4.4 % to 22.2 % that took place in 1989‑1993, when Finland moved from the middle rank in the European employment statistics to become one of the countries with the worst unemployment. The traditional statistical approach based on administrative areas is fired out with georeferenced data for 1 x 1 km grid cells. The principal empirical observation at the municipality (local government district) level is that the small, predominantly rural districts of East­ern, Central and Northern Finland had poor economic dependency ratios that showed no appreciable improvement during the subsequent general econom­ic recovery. GIS analyses based on deciles of population density confirmed this polarization of the differences in regional structure, since although unem­ployment and the economic dependency ratio deteriorated most markedly in the densely populated urban areas during 1989‑1993, the most sparsely pop­ulated areas lagged well behind these in development during the recovery years of 1993‑1997. The results suggest that the use of georeferenced data can pro­vide additional information for planning and decision‑making purposes in the form of more accurate identification of problem areas.