HELSINKI ALUEITTAIN

were completed in inner Helsinki, versus just onefifth
during the previous decade. This was primarily
due to the start of large building projects in Jätkäsaari
and Kalasatama.
In the Helsinki Region, jobs have increased by
16,000 in the present decade, but in Helsinki proper,
increase has been modest. Over the period
2012–2013, jobs decreased by 5,000 in the region as
a whole, of which 4,500 in Helsinki. Of all jobs in
Helsinki, two-thirds are located in inner Helsinki,
but there are job concentrations in the outer Helsinki
districts of Pitäjänmäki, Malmi, Herttoniemi and
Vartiokylä, too.
The population
The population structure is clearly different in Helsinki
than in Finland as a whole. While in Helsinki,
21–39 year olds make up the largest age category,
in Finland as a whole 47–68 year olds do. Helsinki
has smaller proportions of children and pensioners
than has Finland. 16.4 per cent of Helsinki residents
are under 17 years old, and a similar proportion are
over 65. In Finland as a whole, the proportion of
children and pensioners is 20 per cent each.
Differences between various parts of Helsinki
are very big. Young people moving to Helsinki often
find their first home in the inner Helsinki district of
Alppiharju, were small dwellings predominate. In
the outer Helsinki district of Maunula, two-thirds of
dwellings lie in blocks-of-flats built in the 1950–60s,
and the proportion of over 65 year olds is largest in
all of Helsinki. In Latokartano, the number of dwellings
in blocks-of-flats built since the early 2000s has
been relatively highest in Helsinki, and today, they
house many families with children. The proportion
of families with children is largest in Östersundom.
At year-end 2014, some 65 per cent of Helsinki’s
population belonged to a family, and the average
size of families was 2.65 persons. The proportion of
families is largest in Östersundom and in the smallhouse
areas in northern and north-eastern Helsinki.
Families with children, i.e. families with children
under 18, make up 39 per cent of households
in Tuomarinkylä and 50 per cent in Östersundom.
Among families with children, the proportion of
those with a lone parent was greatest in the districts
of Jakomäki, Pasila and Pukinmäki, for instance 42
per cent in Jakomäki. In the eastern parts of inner
Helsinki, the majority of dwellings are small, and
single housing is most common in these parts. In
Alppiharju, for example, 72 per cent of dwellings
house just one person.
In Helsinki, housing space per person stopped
increasing in 2005 and has stayed at 34 square metres
per person ever since. The current national average
is 40 sq.m., having increased by 2.4 sq.m. since
2005. Households in Helsinki are more crowded than
average regardless of their size. With the exception of
large dwellings with more than five rooms, Helsinki
has the smallest housing space per person of all
Finnish municipalities. Small households differ most
from the national average: in Helsinki, lone dwellers
have 10 sq.m. less space than has the average Finn.
People have the largest housing space in the southern
parts of inner Helsinki, in old detached-house
areas and in those old suburbs where dwellings
are, on average, large. The most crowded housing is
found in the eastern parts of inner Helsinki.
The dwelling stock
In Helsinki, blocks of flats and small dwellings predominate.
86 per cent of dwellings are located in
blocks-of-flats. One-room dwellings make up 23 per
cent of dwellings, and one or two-room dwellings
together 59 per cent. The average size of all dwellings
is 63.3 square metres. The average size is largest,
160 sq.m., in Östersundom, followed by Länsi- and
Itä-Pakila, 99 sq.m. It is smallest in Alppiharju, 38
sq.m.
Of all dwellings in Helsinki, 43 per cent are owneroccupied
and 46 per cent rented dwellings. In smallhouse
dominated districts in northern Helsinki and
in Östersundom, four-fifths of dwellings are owneroccupied.
Those areas, too, where rented housing
predominates, differ clearly from each other: while
in inner Helsinki, rented dwellings are, for the most
part, market dwellings, outer Helsinki has almost 80
per cent of all state-subsidised so-called ARA dwellings.
The greatest proportion of such social housing,
ARA dwellings, (46–51 per cent of dwellings) are
found in Jakomäki and Maunula.
Socio-economic structure of the
population
Whereas as people with a higher level of education
and income predominate in districts where small
houses and owner-occupied housing are common,
those with a lower level of education and income live
in state-subsidised social housing.