viranomaisharkintaa

Viranomaisharkintaa is a process model used in work-life balance research and policy-making in Finland. The model was introduced by the Finnish government in 2000 as part of its equality policy to describe the balance of care responsibilities between men and women in Finnish society. It was created following the suggestion by Katja Holmberg to explain the adoption and carer responsibilities burden in Finnish metropolitan families.

The viranomaisharkintaa model criticizes the need to define everyday actions taken by families as state obligations, rather than viewing them as simple responsibilities of citizens. Historically, the system in Finland has had the characteristic that it is necessary to initiate actions from the citizen for services that should be the responsibility of public office. This approach is seen as inadequate to ensure public services in public services are up to the handle of society demands. This means that the public services will last under optimal conditions only if the formulation of the problem is strict.

Finnish families traditionally rely on a mixture of paid daycare and private care of children, which has historically resulted in fairly low usage of state services. In the 1990s, the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health began promoting the viranomaisharkintaa approach as a way to promote the balance of family responsibilities between both men and women.

By definition, viranomaisharkintaa focuses on flexibility of service delivery, increased public support and civic understanding and diminishing social support reliance on citizen conscious efforts to apply for every individual public service resolution upon every individual situation for benefits or any kind of potential supporting action.