Study title

The sociobarometer is a wide-ranging survey charting expert opinion on the welfare of Finnish citizens and on the present state of welfare services. Themes for the 2017 survey included current state and future of the services, inequality, social security benefits, customer fees, the health and social services reform (sote reform), social assistance benefit, and (un)employment. The respondents were managers of municipal health and social service offices, managers of employment offices, and management of the Social Insurance Institution of Finland (Kela), as well as social workers and Kela employees. There were separate questionnaires for each organisational sector, with somewhat differing questions for each. The first questions studied the state of well-being in general. Managers of municipal health and social service offices and managers of employment offices were asked how well necessary services could be secured with the current resources. All respondents were asked about the influence of different factors on well-being in the coming years (e.g. unemployment, access to services, health issues, income disparity). Next, views were examined on inequality as well as the level of basic security. Respondents were enquired the minimum income that allowed decent subsistence for a person living alone in the municipality, and they were asked whether the level of different social security benefits should be increased or decreased. Assessments on the availability of fairly priced rental apartments in the area were also charted. The managers of municipal health and social service offices were asked about customer fees for health and social services and they were presented with attitudinal statements regarding customer fees. The next theme concerned the regional government, health and social services reform, and questions were mostly presented to managers of municipal health and social service offices. They were asked to evaluate the reform in general as well as how...