Maria Vaalavuo
Biographic Data
| ID | 279361 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Maria Vaalavuo |
| GIVEN NAMES | Maria |
| FAMILY NAME | Vaalavuo |
| SIGNATURE | VAALAVUO M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1951-5042 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 22 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 89 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 22 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2013 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Nature's Curriculum: Genes Linked to Educational Attainment and Adult Socioeconomic Status Across Birth Cohorts in a Nordic Welfare State
Recent research has identified genes linked to educational attainment, but their effects on subsequent socioeconomic outcomes, particularly in egalitarian Nordic welfare states, remain largely unexplored. We analyze two genetically informed Finnish datasets, encompassing longitudinal register information on earnings, employment, unemployment, occupational status, and social assistance receipt (n = 31,622). We examine the role of a polygenic score…
Poverty Dynamics in Early Childhood among the Native-Born Children of Immigrants in Sweden and Finland
This brief report delves into the poverty dynamics of second-generation immigrant (G2) children in Sweden and Finland, comparing them with their peers from the majority population. These are unique contexts to examine such socioeconomic inequalities since they are the two highest ranked countries in terms of the Migrant Integration Policy Index. This study draws on longitudinal full-population register data from 2011–2019 for children aged 0–4. T…
A family affair? Long-term economic and mental health effects of spousal cancer
Research on the family spillover effects of health shocks, which has focused mainly on labor market outcomes, has yielded inconclusive results, with limited insight into long-term consequences or underlying mechanisms. We analyze the short- and long-term impacts of cancer on the unaffected spouse’s labor supply and mental health as well as marital stability, considering gender and relative income status within the households. Using population-bas…
(Un)happy Together—The Interrelated Life Satisfaction of Older Couples
In this article, we explore a largely uncharted field of research—how a partner’s life satisfaction is associated with one’s own life satisfaction among older (50+) couples in Europe. We also study the moderating role of caregiving, health difference, social relations, and country of residence. We analyse longitudinal data from seven waves of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe using fixed effects regression techniques. Our anal…
Health care use as an aspect of immigrant integration? An analysis of health care cost convergence among new immigrants and natives in Finland
The aim of this study is to analyse 1) how average health care costs differ between newly arrived immigrants and natives in Finland, 2) whether the costs of immigrants converge to the level of natives over time, and 3) how other factors of integration are associated with convergence in health care use. We use individual-level register data on total working-age (18-64) population living in Finland between 2008 and 2017 combined with their health c…
Earnings development among new immigrants in Finland: Does a Native-Born Partner Enhance Economic Integration
Many studies have analysed the role of individual characteristics on the labour market outcomes of immigrants. However, there is only limited evidence on how an immigrant's partnership status and intermarriage with a native-born person are associated with earnings development. Partnerships in general can be considered a proxy for social capital, productivity, and characteristics valued in the labour market. A partnership with a native person is a…
Financial burden of medicines in five Northern European countries: A decommodification perspective
Affordable access to healthcare including medicines is a key social policy goal in Europe. However, it has rarely been addressed in comparative social policy research. Although the concept of decommodification has already been used in the context of healthcare and sickness benefits, we argue that the scope of such studies should be expanded to medicines to understand how welfare states protect their citizens from market forces in case of illness.…
Association Between Age and Subjective Economic Hardship Across the Income Distribution in Europe
Gender Inequality Reinforced: The Impact of a Child's Health Shock on Parents' Labor Market Trajectories
This article employs a couple-level framework to examine how a child's severe illness affects within-family gender inequality. We study parental labor market responses to a child's cancer diagnosis by exploiting an event-study methodology and rich individual-level administrative data on hospitalizations and labor market variables for the total population in Finland. We find that a child's cancer negatively affects the mother's and the father's la…
Does social disadvantage persist over generations due to an uneven distribution of mental health diagnoses? A longitudinal investigation of Finnish register data
Social disadvantages persist over generations, while the mechanisms behind the intergenerational transmission are not well understood. To fill this gap, first, we examine to what degree being diagnosed with a mental health disorder in adolescence mediate the transmission of social disadvantage. Second, we investigate whether the role of mental health varies for different outcomes. Third, we examine differences between disorder groups and gender. …
Growing up unequal? Socioeconomic disparities in mental disorders throughout childhood in Finland
Problems in mental health and socioeconomic health inequalities during childhood and adolescence are receiving important scientific and political attention. This in mind, we study how current family income and parental education are associated with psychiatric disorders among children in a well-developed welfare state, Finland. To gain a deeper understanding of how these disparities develop through early life course, we study the differences betw…
Jobs against poverty: A fixed-effects analysis on the link between gaining employment and exiting poverty in Europe
This article analyses the role of gaining employment in escaping poverty at the individual level by using EU-SILC pooled panel data for 2010-2017 for 30 European countries. We assess this in a dynamic research setting using individual fixed effects that take into account unobserved time-invariant heterogeneity between individuals. We focus on the type and intensity of employment and the role of gender, education, and age. Overall, gaining employm…
Mental health problems in youth and later receipt of social assistance: Do parental resources matter
In this article, we study the association between mental health problems in adolescence and early adulthood and later receipt of social assistance in the capital region of Finland. Using register d
Neighbourhood effects on psychiatric disorders among Finnish adolescents: The moderating impact of family background
We study whether childhood neighbourhood context affects mental health in adolescence in Finland. We also examine heterogeneous effects by family background. By exploiting register data for 1999-2018, we use sibling fixed effects models to gain more robust evidence on the existence of neighbourhood effects. We do not find evidence of an association between neighbourhood characteristics and psychiatric disorders within families. Differences in the…
Are the Sick Left Behind at the Peripheries? Health Selection in Migration to Growing Urban Centres in Finland
We study health selection in rural–urban migration in Finland using register data. Specifically, we ask whether ‘movers’ differ from ‘stayers’ in their use of special health care services prior to moving. We focus on migration to twelve growing urban centres in different sub-groups of the population as well as in different regions, using multinomial logistic regression and multilevel modelling and by distinguishing between short- and long-distanc…
Justice in transitions: Widening considerations of justice in dietary transition
Just transition is gaining increasing attention.The need to consider social justice in sustainability transitions is finally being acknowledged.Research on this issue has, to date, mainly concentrated on energy systems.In this paper, we examine how the elaboration of dietary transition widens the spectrum of justice questions in sustainability transitions research.We explicate the arising normative questions along the dimensions of distributive, …
Health shocks and couples' labor market participation: A turning point or stuck in the trajectory
A health shock can have lasting consequences for the employment of not only the individuals experiencing it, but also their spouses. In this article, we complement the individual approach to the impact of health shocks with a dyadic perspective and show how employment opportunities and restrictions within couples are interdependent in the face of severe illness. We investigate whether the association between male spouses' health shocks and couple…
Mental Health Problems at a Critical Juncture: Exit from Social Assistance among Young Finns
Reducing social assistance dependency is high on the political agenda; labour market and social exclusion of youth, in particular, has been considered worrisome. With these policy objectives and societal considerations in mind we set to study the association between health problems, with a specific focus on mental health, and the duration of social assistance receipt among young adults in Finland. Our analyses are based on rich register data enco…
Use of public health and social care services among the elderly in Finland: An under-examined mechanism of redistribution
The opportunity to use public services supports older people’s livelihoods, although out-of-pocket fees can be a burden, especially for low-income pensioners. In this article, we analyse the use of health and social care services among the elderly in Finland. The objectives are two-fold: first, to study the distribution of public spending on services across income groups, and second, to investigate the related costs to the service-user. The artic…
Income Mobility and Moving to a Better Neighbourhood: An Enquiry into Ethnic Differences in Finland
The spatial concentration of immigrants in disadvantaged neighbourhoods may hinder their opportunities for social and economic integration. It is therefore important that immigrants can translate their available economic resources into mobility to less disadvantaged neighbourhoods. This study adds to existing research on the relationship between socioeconomic and spatial integration by focusing on the effects of income mobility on residential mob…
The development of healthcare use among a cohort of Finnish social assistance clients: Testing the Social Selection Hypothesis
This article examines the association between healthcare use and receipt of social assistance. It focuses on asking to what extent the use of healthcare (seen as a proxy for health status) leads to social assistance. This is answered by describing the use of healthcare services among a cohort of Finnish social assistance clients before, during and after the first receipt of benefit by means of fixed-effects logistic regression. Using register dat…
The Redistributive Impact of 'Old' and 'New' Social Spending
The welfare state literature has recently identified a shift from the protection against traditional risks to social investment. In this new future-oriented and activation-based social policy, the focus is on the redistribution of opportunities instead of income. Even if vertical redistribution from the rich to poor may be only one rationale of social action, it should not be overlooked when directing social policy from insurance to investment. T…
Justice in transitions: Widening considerations of justice in dietary transition
Just transition is gaining increasing attention.The need to consider social justice in sustainability transitions is finally being acknowledged.Research on this issue has, to date, mainly concentrated on energy systems.In this paper, we examine how the elaboration of dietary transition widens the spectrum of justice questions in sustainability transitions research.We explicate the arising normative questions along the dimensions of distributive, …
The Redistributive Impact of 'Old' and 'New' Social Spending
The welfare state literature has recently identified a shift from the protection against traditional risks to social investment. In this new future-oriented and activation-based social policy, the focus is on the redistribution of opportunities instead of income. Even if vertical redistribution from the rich to poor may be only one rationale of social action, it should not be overlooked when directing social policy from insurance to investment. T…
Income Mobility and Moving to a Better Neighbourhood: An Enquiry into Ethnic Differences in Finland
The spatial concentration of immigrants in disadvantaged neighbourhoods may hinder their opportunities for social and economic integration. It is therefore important that immigrants can translate their available economic resources into mobility to less disadvantaged neighbourhoods. This study adds to existing research on the relationship between socioeconomic and spatial integration by focusing on the effects of income mobility on residential mob…
Health shocks and couples' labor market participation: A turning point or stuck in the trajectory
A health shock can have lasting consequences for the employment of not only the individuals experiencing it, but also their spouses. In this article, we complement the individual approach to the impact of health shocks with a dyadic perspective and show how employment opportunities and restrictions within couples are interdependent in the face of severe illness. We investigate whether the association between male spouses' health shocks and couple…
Jobs against poverty: A fixed-effects analysis on the link between gaining employment and exiting poverty in Europe
This article analyses the role of gaining employment in escaping poverty at the individual level by using EU-SILC pooled panel data for 2010-2017 for 30 European countries. We assess this in a dynamic research setting using individual fixed effects that take into account unobserved time-invariant heterogeneity between individuals. We focus on the type and intensity of employment and the role of gender, education, and age. Overall, gaining employm…
Gender Inequality Reinforced: The Impact of a Child's Health Shock on Parents' Labor Market Trajectories
This article employs a couple-level framework to examine how a child's severe illness affects within-family gender inequality. We study parental labor market responses to a child's cancer diagnosis by exploiting an event-study methodology and rich individual-level administrative data on hospitalizations and labor market variables for the total population in Finland. We find that a child's cancer negatively affects the mother's and the father's la…
Use of public health and social care services among the elderly in Finland: An under-examined mechanism of redistribution
The opportunity to use public services supports older people’s livelihoods, although out-of-pocket fees can be a burden, especially for low-income pensioners. In this article, we analyse the use of health and social care services among the elderly in Finland. The objectives are two-fold: first, to study the distribution of public spending on services across income groups, and second, to investigate the related costs to the service-user. The artic…
The development of healthcare use among a cohort of Finnish social assistance clients: Testing the Social Selection Hypothesis
This article examines the association between healthcare use and receipt of social assistance. It focuses on asking to what extent the use of healthcare (seen as a proxy for health status) leads to social assistance. This is answered by describing the use of healthcare services among a cohort of Finnish social assistance clients before, during and after the first receipt of benefit by means of fixed-effects logistic regression. Using register dat…
A family affair? Long-term economic and mental health effects of spousal cancer
Research on the family spillover effects of health shocks, which has focused mainly on labor market outcomes, has yielded inconclusive results, with limited insight into long-term consequences or underlying mechanisms. We analyze the short- and long-term impacts of cancer on the unaffected spouse’s labor supply and mental health as well as marital stability, considering gender and relative income status within the households. Using population-bas…
Financial burden of medicines in five Northern European countries: A decommodification perspective
Affordable access to healthcare including medicines is a key social policy goal in Europe. However, it has rarely been addressed in comparative social policy research. Although the concept of decommodification has already been used in the context of healthcare and sickness benefits, we argue that the scope of such studies should be expanded to medicines to understand how welfare states protect their citizens from market forces in case of illness.…
Association Between Age and Subjective Economic Hardship Across the Income Distribution in Europe
Mental Health Problems at a Critical Juncture: Exit from Social Assistance among Young Finns
Reducing social assistance dependency is high on the political agenda; labour market and social exclusion of youth, in particular, has been considered worrisome. With these policy objectives and societal considerations in mind we set to study the association between health problems, with a specific focus on mental health, and the duration of social assistance receipt among young adults in Finland. Our analyses are based on rich register data enco…
Earnings development among new immigrants in Finland: Does a Native-Born Partner Enhance Economic Integration
Many studies have analysed the role of individual characteristics on the labour market outcomes of immigrants. However, there is only limited evidence on how an immigrant's partnership status and intermarriage with a native-born person are associated with earnings development. Partnerships in general can be considered a proxy for social capital, productivity, and characteristics valued in the labour market. A partnership with a native person is a…
Does social disadvantage persist over generations due to an uneven distribution of mental health diagnoses? A longitudinal investigation of Finnish register data
Social disadvantages persist over generations, while the mechanisms behind the intergenerational transmission are not well understood. To fill this gap, first, we examine to what degree being diagnosed with a mental health disorder in adolescence mediate the transmission of social disadvantage. Second, we investigate whether the role of mental health varies for different outcomes. Third, we examine differences between disorder groups and gender. …
Mental health problems in youth and later receipt of social assistance: Do parental resources matter
In this article, we study the association between mental health problems in adolescence and early adulthood and later receipt of social assistance in the capital region of Finland. Using register d
Neighbourhood effects on psychiatric disorders among Finnish adolescents: The moderating impact of family background
We study whether childhood neighbourhood context affects mental health in adolescence in Finland. We also examine heterogeneous effects by family background. By exploiting register data for 1999-2018, we use sibling fixed effects models to gain more robust evidence on the existence of neighbourhood effects. We do not find evidence of an association between neighbourhood characteristics and psychiatric disorders within families. Differences in the…
The Redistributive Impact of 'Old' and 'New' Social Spending
The welfare state literature has recently identified a shift from the protection against traditional risks to social investment. In this new future-oriented and activation-based social policy, the focus is on the redistribution of opportunities instead of income. Even if vertical redistribution from the rich to poor may be only one rationale of social action, it should not be overlooked when directing social policy from insurance to investment. T…
The development of healthcare use among a cohort of Finnish social assistance clients: Testing the Social Selection Hypothesis
This article examines the association between healthcare use and receipt of social assistance. It focuses on asking to what extent the use of healthcare (seen as a proxy for health status) leads to social assistance. This is answered by describing the use of healthcare services among a cohort of Finnish social assistance clients before, during and after the first receipt of benefit by means of fixed-effects logistic regression. Using register dat…
Use of public health and social care services among the elderly in Finland: An under-examined mechanism of redistribution
The opportunity to use public services supports older people’s livelihoods, although out-of-pocket fees can be a burden, especially for low-income pensioners. In this article, we analyse the use of health and social care services among the elderly in Finland. The objectives are two-fold: first, to study the distribution of public spending on services across income groups, and second, to investigate the related costs to the service-user. The artic…
Income Mobility and Moving to a Better Neighbourhood: An Enquiry into Ethnic Differences in Finland
The spatial concentration of immigrants in disadvantaged neighbourhoods may hinder their opportunities for social and economic integration. It is therefore important that immigrants can translate their available economic resources into mobility to less disadvantaged neighbourhoods. This study adds to existing research on the relationship between socioeconomic and spatial integration by focusing on the effects of income mobility on residential mob…
Mental health problems in youth and later receipt of social assistance: Do parental resources matter
In this article, we study the association between mental health problems in adolescence and early adulthood and later receipt of social assistance in the capital region of Finland. Using register d
Neighbourhood effects on psychiatric disorders among Finnish adolescents: The moderating impact of family background
We study whether childhood neighbourhood context affects mental health in adolescence in Finland. We also examine heterogeneous effects by family background. By exploiting register data for 1999-2018, we use sibling fixed effects models to gain more robust evidence on the existence of neighbourhood effects. We do not find evidence of an association between neighbourhood characteristics and psychiatric disorders within families. Differences in the…
Are the Sick Left Behind at the Peripheries? Health Selection in Migration to Growing Urban Centres in Finland
We study health selection in rural–urban migration in Finland using register data. Specifically, we ask whether ‘movers’ differ from ‘stayers’ in their use of special health care services prior to moving. We focus on migration to twelve growing urban centres in different sub-groups of the population as well as in different regions, using multinomial logistic regression and multilevel modelling and by distinguishing between short- and long-distanc…
Justice in transitions: Widening considerations of justice in dietary transition
Just transition is gaining increasing attention.The need to consider social justice in sustainability transitions is finally being acknowledged.Research on this issue has, to date, mainly concentrated on energy systems.In this paper, we examine how the elaboration of dietary transition widens the spectrum of justice questions in sustainability transitions research.We explicate the arising normative questions along the dimensions of distributive, …
Health shocks and couples' labor market participation: A turning point or stuck in the trajectory
A health shock can have lasting consequences for the employment of not only the individuals experiencing it, but also their spouses. In this article, we complement the individual approach to the impact of health shocks with a dyadic perspective and show how employment opportunities and restrictions within couples are interdependent in the face of severe illness. We investigate whether the association between male spouses' health shocks and couple…
Mental Health Problems at a Critical Juncture: Exit from Social Assistance among Young Finns
Reducing social assistance dependency is high on the political agenda; labour market and social exclusion of youth, in particular, has been considered worrisome. With these policy objectives and societal considerations in mind we set to study the association between health problems, with a specific focus on mental health, and the duration of social assistance receipt among young adults in Finland. Our analyses are based on rich register data enco…
Growing up unequal? Socioeconomic disparities in mental disorders throughout childhood in Finland
Problems in mental health and socioeconomic health inequalities during childhood and adolescence are receiving important scientific and political attention. This in mind, we study how current family income and parental education are associated with psychiatric disorders among children in a well-developed welfare state, Finland. To gain a deeper understanding of how these disparities develop through early life course, we study the differences betw…
Jobs against poverty: A fixed-effects analysis on the link between gaining employment and exiting poverty in Europe
This article analyses the role of gaining employment in escaping poverty at the individual level by using EU-SILC pooled panel data for 2010-2017 for 30 European countries. We assess this in a dynamic research setting using individual fixed effects that take into account unobserved time-invariant heterogeneity between individuals. We focus on the type and intensity of employment and the role of gender, education, and age. Overall, gaining employm…
Gender Inequality Reinforced: The Impact of a Child's Health Shock on Parents' Labor Market Trajectories
This article employs a couple-level framework to examine how a child's severe illness affects within-family gender inequality. We study parental labor market responses to a child's cancer diagnosis by exploiting an event-study methodology and rich individual-level administrative data on hospitalizations and labor market variables for the total population in Finland. We find that a child's cancer negatively affects the mother's and the father's la…
Does social disadvantage persist over generations due to an uneven distribution of mental health diagnoses? A longitudinal investigation of Finnish register data
Social disadvantages persist over generations, while the mechanisms behind the intergenerational transmission are not well understood. To fill this gap, first, we examine to what degree being diagnosed with a mental health disorder in adolescence mediate the transmission of social disadvantage. Second, we investigate whether the role of mental health varies for different outcomes. Third, we examine differences between disorder groups and gender. …
Financial burden of medicines in five Northern European countries: A decommodification perspective
Affordable access to healthcare including medicines is a key social policy goal in Europe. However, it has rarely been addressed in comparative social policy research. Although the concept of decommodification has already been used in the context of healthcare and sickness benefits, we argue that the scope of such studies should be expanded to medicines to understand how welfare states protect their citizens from market forces in case of illness.…
Association Between Age and Subjective Economic Hardship Across the Income Distribution in Europe
A family affair? Long-term economic and mental health effects of spousal cancer
Research on the family spillover effects of health shocks, which has focused mainly on labor market outcomes, has yielded inconclusive results, with limited insight into long-term consequences or underlying mechanisms. We analyze the short- and long-term impacts of cancer on the unaffected spouse’s labor supply and mental health as well as marital stability, considering gender and relative income status within the households. Using population-bas…
(Un)happy Together—The Interrelated Life Satisfaction of Older Couples
In this article, we explore a largely uncharted field of research—how a partner’s life satisfaction is associated with one’s own life satisfaction among older (50+) couples in Europe. We also study the moderating role of caregiving, health difference, social relations, and country of residence. We analyse longitudinal data from seven waves of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe using fixed effects regression techniques. Our anal…
Health care use as an aspect of immigrant integration? An analysis of health care cost convergence among new immigrants and natives in Finland
The aim of this study is to analyse 1) how average health care costs differ between newly arrived immigrants and natives in Finland, 2) whether the costs of immigrants converge to the level of natives over time, and 3) how other factors of integration are associated with convergence in health care use. We use individual-level register data on total working-age (18-64) population living in Finland between 2008 and 2017 combined with their health c…
Earnings development among new immigrants in Finland: Does a Native-Born Partner Enhance Economic Integration
Many studies have analysed the role of individual characteristics on the labour market outcomes of immigrants. However, there is only limited evidence on how an immigrant's partnership status and intermarriage with a native-born person are associated with earnings development. Partnerships in general can be considered a proxy for social capital, productivity, and characteristics valued in the labour market. A partnership with a native person is a…
Nature's Curriculum: Genes Linked to Educational Attainment and Adult Socioeconomic Status Across Birth Cohorts in a Nordic Welfare State
Recent research has identified genes linked to educational attainment, but their effects on subsequent socioeconomic outcomes, particularly in egalitarian Nordic welfare states, remain largely unexplored. We analyze two genetically informed Finnish datasets, encompassing longitudinal register information on earnings, employment, unemployment, occupational status, and social assistance receipt (n = 31,622). We examine the role of a polygenic score…
Poverty Dynamics in Early Childhood among the Native-Born Children of Immigrants in Sweden and Finland
This brief report delves into the poverty dynamics of second-generation immigrant (G2) children in Sweden and Finland, comparing them with their peers from the majority population. These are unique contexts to examine such socioeconomic inequalities since they are the two highest ranked countries in terms of the Migrant Integration Policy Index. This study draws on longitudinal full-population register data from 2011–2019 for children aged 0–4. T…
Economics (15 works) · Demographic economics (11 works) · Economic growth (11 works) · Medicine (11 works) · Psychology (11 works) · Population (10 works) · Health disparities and outcomes (9 works) · Employment and Welfare Studies (7 works) · Global Health Care Issues (7 works) · Sociology (7 works)