Education

1866: Primary School Decree
1869: First Finnish speaking school for girls
1886 women become eligible to teach in girls’ schools
1880’s: First mixed schools
1870: First female student in Helsinki University
1882: First university diploma by a woman
1897: 8,5 % of the students are women
1901: Equal rights to female and male students
1916: Women allowed to teach in universities
1917: 25 % of the students are women
1997-98: 62 % of the students are women; 17% of the professors

Legal status

1930: Marriage Act which released women from their husbands’ guardianship; legal equality
1937: Maternity Allowance Act
1961: Contraception pill legalised
1970: Act on abortion
1973: Act on children’s day care
1974: Spouses’ separate income tax legislation
1978: Fathers’ parental leave introduced
1986: Surname Act
1986: Equality Act  / 1988 / 1992 / 1995
1994: Rape in marriage criminalised
1995: Act on women’s voluntary military service
1998: Rape seizes to be a complainant offence

Civil Rights

1864: Unmarried women become legally competent at 25; at 21 women can decide about their marriage
1878: Equal inheritance rights for women and men
1889: Married woman granted with a restricted right to control their earned property and income
1919: Married women allowed to be gainfully employed without their husbands’ consent

Political Rights

1873: Unmarried/divorced women authorised to vote in Municipal Elections on the same grounds as men (suffrage was based on wealth)
1906: Women granted the right of vote in state elections and the right to be eligible
1907: First women elected to the Parliament
1917: Right to vote in Municipal elections, right to eligibility
1926: First female minister
1994: First woman as the Speaker of the Parliament
1995: 40- 60% quota provision for state committees and municipal bodies
2000: First female president

Work

1922: Married women authorised to conclude a contract of employment independently
1926: Act on women’s eligibility for civil service
1962: Principle for equal pay for the same work introduced
1970: Equality statement included to the Contracts of Employment Act
1975: Women granted the right to accede to all state offices and functions except those requiring military service
1987: Prohibition of gender discrimination in the labour market
1988: Women authorised to become priests in the Finnish Evangelical-Lutheran Church
1995: Women allowed in military offices