Satu Helske
PhD
satu.helske@utu.fi +358 29 450 4105 +358 50 473 8462 Assistentinkatu 7 Turku : 484 |
inequality; work and family; (fathers') parental leave; life course; longitudinal research; sequence analysis; Markovian models
PI of the SHARELEAVE project, Co-PI of the REGPARENT project
I am a Docent in sociology (equivalent to Habilitation) and hold a PhD in statistics. I work as Collegium Researcher for the Turku Institute of Advanced Studies (TIAS) at the INVEST Research Flagship Centre, Faculty of Social Sciences. I lead a research team focusing on causes and consequences of fathers' parental leave.
I completed my PhD in statistics at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, in 2016. Following my PhD I worked as a postdoctoral researcher, first at the Department of Sociology at the University of Oxford, UK, and then at the Institute for Analytical Sociology at Linköping University, Sweden.
My main interests lie in intergenerational and life course research, especially employment and family dynamics and causes and consequences of (father's) parental leave. I am also interested in longitudinal research methods, especially sequence analysis and related methods.
I lead the project “Parental Leave in Context: Social Drivers of Sharing Care” (SHARELEAVE), funded by the Research Council of Finland (2025–2029) and the Turku Institute for Advanced Studies (TIAS: 2025–2028). The aim of the project is to investigate socioeconomic differences in the use of parental leave within families: how parents share parental leave and how their social environments influence their leave use. The project examines typical and atypical use of parental leave among different population groups and how parental leave use has changed over the years and in various social environments: in workplaces, residential areas, and extended family networks.
In addition, together with Anna Erika Hägglund, I co-lead the project “Variation in parents’ division of parental leave across regions and language groups in Finland" (REGPARENT), funded by the Swedish Cultural Foundation in Finland. The project examines parental leave use in Finnish- and Swedish-speaking families in different regions of Finland.
In 2020–2024, I was the leader of the research consortium “Towards well-informed decisions: Predicting long-term effects of policy reforms on life trajectories" (PREDLIFE). The consortium involved sociologists from the INVEST flagship and statisticians from the University of Jyväskylä. In the project, we developed new methods and software for simulating the effects of legal changes (or other interventions), as well as for modelling extensive panel data, such as life course data, and for causal inference. In our sociological studies, we showed, for instance, that fathers’ use of parental leave was influenced not only by legal reforms but also by slower effects, such as learning by example occurring in workplaces and residential environments.
I teach statistical methods for social sciences.
Teaching in 2025–2026:
- Sequence Analysis and Markovian Models
- Introduction to Longitudinal and Multilevel Modelling.
- Samassa myrskyssä mutta eri veneissä – koronapandemia ja eriarvoisuus (2021)
- INVEST blog
- COVID-19-tutkimuskatsaus 1/2020 (2020) Pimenoff Ville, Harrikari Timo, Toivanen Otto, Ylöstalo Hanna, Vainikainen Mari-Pauliina, Mäkinen Saku, Arponen Anni, Heinikoski Saila, Limnéll Jarno, Salo Ahti
- COVID-19-tutkimuskatsaus 2/2020 (2020) Pimenoff Ville, Harrikari Timo, Toivanen Otto, Ylöstalo Hanna, Vainikainen Mari-Pauliina, Mäkinen Saku, Arponen Anni, Heinikoski Saila, Limnéll Jarno, Salo Ahti
- COVID-19-tutkimuskatsaus 3/2020 (2020) Pimenoff Ville, Harrikari Timo, Toivanen Otto, Ylöstalo Hanna, Vainikainen Mari-Pauliina, Mäkinen Saku, Arponen Anni, Heinikoski Saila, Limnéll Jarno, Salo Ahti
- COVID-19-tutkimuskatsaus 4/2020 (2020) Pimenoff Ville, Harrikari Timo, Toivanen Otto, Ylöstalo Hanna, Vainikainen Mari-Pauliina, Mäkinen Saku, Arponen Anni, Heinikoski Saila, Limnéll Jarno, Salo Ahti
- COVID-19-tutkimuskatsaus 5/2020 (2020) Pimenoff Ville, Harrikari Timo, Toivanen Otto, Ylöstalo Hanna, Vainikainen Mari-Pauliina, Mäkinen Saku, Arponen Anni, Heinikoski Saila, Limnéll Jarno, Salo Ahti
- COVID-19-tutkimuskatsaus 6/2020 (2020) COVID-19-tutkimuskatsaus Pimenoff Ville, Harrikari Timo, Toivanen Otto, Ylöstalo Hanna, Vainikainen Mari-Pauliina, Mäkinen Saku, Arponen Anni, Heinikoski Saila, Limnéll Jarno, Salo Ahti
- COVID-19-tutkimuskatsaus 7/2020 (2020) Helske Satu, Koskinen Henri, Ylöstalo Hanna
- COVID-19-tutkimuskatsaus 8/2020 (2020) Vapalahti, Olli; Sironen, Tarja; Pimenoff, Ville; Auranen, Kari; Leino, Tuija; Karvonen, Sakari; Toivanen, Otto; Ylöstalo, Hanna; Vainikainen, Mari-Pauliina; Mäkinen, Saku; Arponen, Anni; Heinikoski, Saila; Limnéll, Jarno; Salo, Ahti
- COVIDparty App (2020) Satu Helske
- Uskaltaako läheisiä tavata, jos kaikilla on negatiivinen tulos koronatestistä? (2020)
- INVEST blog
- Educational reproduction in Europe: A descriptive account (2019)
- Demographic Research
- Mixture Hidden Markov Models for Sequence Data: The seqHMM Package in R (2019)
- Journal of Statistical Software
- Analysis of Life History Calendar Data (2018) Wiley StatsRef: Statistics Reference Online Mervi Eerola, Satu Helske
- Combining Sequence Analysis and Hidden Markov Models in the Analysis of Complex Life Sequence Data (2018) Sequence Analysis and Related Approaches Satu Helske, Jouni Helske, Mervi Eerola
- Analysing Complex Life Sequence Data with Hidden Markov Modelling (2016) LaCOSA II: Proceedings of the International Conference on Sequence Analysis and Related Methods Satu Helske, Jouni Helske, Mervi Eerola
- Statistical analysis of life history calendar data (2016)
- Statistical Methods in Medical Research
- Statistical analysis of life sequence data (2016) Satu Helske
- Partnership formation and dissolution over the life course: applying sequence analysis and event history analysis in the study of recurrent events (2015)
- Longitudinal and Life Course Studies
- seqHMM (R package) (2015) Jouni Helske, Satu Helske