Study title

Safety of Children 2011

Dataset ID Number

FSD2787

Persistent identifier

urn:nbn:fi:fsd:T-FSD2787

Data Type

Quantitative

Authors

• Ellonen, Noora (Police University College)

Abstract

The survey studied the safety and insecurity experienced by Finnish children aged under 13 as well as parents' views on raising children. The survey was aimed at the parents/guardians of children and the questions were about one child selected for the sample. Topics studied included economic circumstances, health of the child, parenting, and violence or other illegal activity experienced by the child.

The respondents were asked whether and to what extent they were worried about their economic circumstances, whether their child suffered from any long-term illness or health problem, whether the child required special support or care, whether the child had ever been hospitalised as a result of an accident, and whether the accident had resulted in permanent disability.

Relating to parenting, the respondents were asked whether they emphasised certain things in raising the child (e.g. fairness, honesty). Concerning conflicts with the child in the previous 12 months, the questions surveyed whether the respondents had tried to resolve the conflicts by discussing and reasoning, whether they had become angry or upset (e.g. cried in front of the child, swore and snapped at her/him), whether they had threatened or physically hurt the child (e.g. said hurtful things, pulled her/his hair, slapped or hit her/him), and whether they had used other means to resolve the conflict (e.g. used misdirection, forbade them to play with their friends). The respondents were also asked how they had felt during the most recent conflict with the child and whether they had needed or received professional help in parenting.

The respondents' childhood and teenage experiences of corporal punishment were charted as well as opinions on the acceptability of different forms of corporal punishment in different situations. Knowledge of the legal status of corporal punishment in Finland was surveyed. The respondents were asked whether they had ever had to intervene in order to protect their or someone else's child from violence, negligence, hurtful language or sexual abuse.

Children's experiences of violence and other illegal activities was studied. The questions presented examined whether the child had been a victim of a crime (robbery, theft, assault) or bullying, and relating to each of these, the respondents were asked how many such incidents had occurred in the previous 12 months, how the respondents had found about the most recent incident, how many perpetrators there had been, who had been the main perpetrator, where the incident had happened, and whether any authorities had been notified. Relating to incidents involving violence, the respondents were asked what kind of injuries the child had sustained, and whether the injuries had had to be cared for by a health professional. Incidents of domestic violence witnessed by the child were examined by asking whether the child had seen the respondent being physically hurt by their spouse/partner or vice versa, and whether the child had seen her/his siblings being hurt by the respondent's spouse/partner.

Finally, some questions were presented to families where the child's biological parents lived separately for some reason. Questions charted the respondent's relationship to the child and the other parent, whether the child met the other parent without the respondent's presence, and whether the respondent knew or was worried about that the child might be hurt or threatened during these meetings. The respondents who had a joint custody of the child with the other parent were asked whether the other parent had ever prevented the child from spending time with or contacting the respondent, how often the respondent had prevented the child from seeing or contacting the other parent, and how often this had happened in the previous 12 months.

Background variables included the respondent's marital status, household composition, housing tenure, year of birth, education level, and own and spouse's economic activity as well as the child's gender, year of birth, region and major region of residence, and degree of urbanisation of the municipality of residence.

Keywords

assault; bullying; child safety; children; crime victims; crimes against persons; crimes against property; domestic violence; family environment; parent participation; parent responsibility; parents

Topic Classification

• Social sciences (Fields of Science Classification)
• Children (CESSDA Topic Classification)
• Social behaviour and attitudes (CESSDA Topic Classification)

Series

Individual datasets

Distributor

Finnish Social Science Data Archive

Access

The dataset is (B) available for research, teaching and study.

Data Collector

• Ellonen, Noora (Police University College)

Data Producers

• Police University College. Research

Time Period Covered

2011

Collection Dates

2011-10-12 – 2012-01-20

Nation

Finland

Geographical Coverage

Finland

Analysis/Observation Unit Type

Individual

Universe

Children aged under 13 years (born 1999-2011) living permanently in Finland, whose mother tongue is Finnish or Swedish (excluding Åland Islands and people in institutions)

Time Method

Cross-section

Sampling Procedure

Probability: Systematic random

The systematic random sample of 6,000 children was drawn from Statistics Finland's population database in September 2011. The survey was meant to be responded by the parents/guardians of the children, but they were allowed to decide who responds to the survey. Each respondent was provided with user credentials for the Internet survey. Additionally, those respondents who had not responded by the time the first reminder letter was sent, were delivered paper questionnaires. After this, the non-respondents were sent the paper questionnaire once more.

Collection Mode

Self-administered questionnaire: Paper

Self-administered questionnaire: Web-based (CAWI)

Research Instrument

Structured questionnaire

Response Rate

52

Data File Language

Downloaded data package may contain different language versions of the same files.

The data files of this dataset are available in the following languages: Finnish.

FSD translates quantitative data into English on request, free of charge. More information on ordering data translation.

Data Version

1.0

Completeness of Data and Restrictions

The data have been collected as part of a project funded by the Academy of Finland. Project number 252106.

Weighting

There are two weight variables, APAINO and KPAINO, in the data which weight the data to represent the population distribution in terms of gender, major region and age group (variables IKAL1 and IKAL2). Analysis weight APAINO represents the sample size and expansion weight KPAINO weights the sample to reflect the size of the population, so that the weight assigned to each respondent indicates the number of people in the population the respondent represents.

Citation Requirement

The data and its creators shall be cited in all publications and presentations for which the data have been used. The bibliographic citation may be in the form suggested by the archive or in the form required by the publication.

Bibliographical Citation

Ellonen, Noora (Police University College): Safety of Children 2011 [dataset]. Version 1.0 (2014-12-11). Finnish Social Science Data Archive [distributor]. https://urn.fi/urn:nbn:fi:fsd:T-FSD2787

Deposit Requirement

Notify FSD of all publications where you have used the data by sending the citation information to user-services.fsd@tuni.fi.

Disclaimer

The original data creators and the archive bear no responsibility for any results or interpretations arising from the reuse of the data.

Related Materials

Kurin alaiset. Lasten ja vanhempien välisten ristiriitojen ratkaiseminen perheissä (2012). Tampere: Poliisiammattikorkeakoulu. Poliisiammattikorkeakoulun raportteja 103.

Related Publications

Kurin alaiset. Lasten ja vanhempien välisten ristiriitojen ratkaiseminen perheissä (2012). Tampere: Poliisiammattikorkeakoulu. Poliisiammattikorkeakoulun raportteja 103.

Ellonen, Noora & Pösö, Tarja & Peltonen, Kirsi (2015). Äidit ja lapsiin kohdistuva väkivalta. Kyselytutkimuksen tulosten pohdintaa. [Mothers and severe violence against children: Discussion of survey findings.] Yhteiskuntapolitiikka 80 (1): 72-80.

Peltonen, Kirsi & Ellonen, Noora & Pösö, Tarja & Lucas, Steven (2014). Mothers' self-report violence toward their children: A multifaceted risk analysis. Child Abuse & Neglect 38 (2): 1923-1933. doi:10.1016/j.chiabu.2014.10.016

Ellonen, Noora & Jernbro, Carolina & Janson, Staffan & Tindberg, Ylva & Lucas, Steven (2014). Current parental attitudes towards upbringing practices in Finland and Sweden thirty years after the ban on corporal punishment. Child Abuse Review, earlyview in online, DOI: 10.1002/car.2356

Kivilohkare, Kristiina (2017). Kasaantuvat haasteet ja vanhemmuuden koettelemukset. Äidin stressitekijät ja lapseen kohdistuva väkivalta. Kuopio: Itä-Suomen yliopisto. Sosiologian pro gradu -tutkielma.