Society—International

Jobless youth

2010 data. Where possible, missing historical data have been interpolated between two available data points.

This indicator measures the proportion of youth aged 20 to 24 years who are not in education, training, or employment in a given year, as a percentage of the total population of the same age cohort.

Source: OECD, Education at a Glance 2012. Paris: OECD, 2012.

Disabled Income

Mid-2000s data.

This indicator measures the personal income of people with disabilities aged 20 to 64, relative to that of people without disabilities.

Source: OECD, Sickness, Disability and Work: Keeping on Track in the Economic Downturn—Background Paper. Paris: OECD, 2009.

Elderly poverty

Late 2000s data.

This indicator measures the poverty rate for people aged 65 and older. Poverty rates are measured as the proportion of individuals aged 65 and older with disposable income less than 50 per cent of the median income of a given country.

Source: Late-2000s data received from the OECD directly. Historical data from OECD, Growing Unequal? Income Distribution and Poverty in OECD Countries. Paris: OECD, 2008.

Child poverty

Late-2000s data.

This indicator measures the proportion of children 17 years and under living in households where disposable income is less than 50 per cent of the median of a given country.

Source: Late-2000s data received from the OECD directly. Historical data from OECD, Society at a Glance, various years.

Working-age poverty

Late-2000s data.

Working-age poverty refers to the proportion of individuals aged 18 to 65 years with equivalized disposable income less than 50 per cent of the median income of a given country.

Source: Late-2000s data received from the OECD directly. Historical data from OECD, Growing Unequal? Income Distribution and Poverty in OECD Countries. Paris: OECD, 2008.

Income inequality

MLate-2000s data.

Income inequality is measured by the Gini coefficient. The Gini coefficient calculates the extent to which the distribution of income among individuals within a country deviates from a perfectly equal distribution. A Gini coefficient of 0 represents perfect equality; a Gini coefficient of 100 represents perfect inequality.

Source: OECDStatExtracts. Online database.

Intergenerational income mobility

Calculated using various years of data.

Class mobility is defined as the extent to which an individual’s income class status is able to change across generations. It is measured by intergenerational earnings elasticity, which calculates the fraction of earnings differences among fathers that is passed on, on average, to their sons (the lower the elasticity, the higher intergenerational mobility).

Source: Miles Corak, “Inequality From Generation to Generation: The United States in Comparison” (accessed November 5, 2012).

Gender income gap

2010 data for Australia, Canada, Japan, Norway, the U.K., and the United States. 2009 data for Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Ireland, and Sweden. 2008 data for Belgium, France, Italy and Switzerland. 2005 data for Netherlands.

The difference between male and female median full-time earnings as a percentage of male median full-time earnings.

Source: OECD Employment online database

Voter turnout

2011 data for Canada, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, and Switzerland. 2010 for Australia, Belgium, Netherlands, Sweden, and the United States. 2009 data for Germany, Japan, Norway, and the United Kingdom. 2008 data for Austria and Italy. 2007 data for France.

Voter turnout is a measure of the proportion of the voting-age population that cast ballots in parliamentary elections.

Source: International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance. Online data.

Confidence in parliament

2007 data for Switzerland. 2006 data for Canada, France, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, U.K., and the United States. 2005 data for Australia, Finland, Italy, and Japan. 1999 data for Austria, Belgium, Denmark, and Ireland.

This indicator measures the proportion of respondents who indicate either “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in parliament, as a percentage of all respondents.

Source: World Values Survey.

Homicides

2010 data for Australia, Austria, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. 2009 data for Canada, France, and Italy. 2008 data for the United States. 2007 data for Switzerland. 2006 data for Belgium and Denmark.

This indicator measures the number of deaths due to homicides per 100,000 population in a given year.

Source: OECD, Health Data 2012. Paris: Author, 2012.

Burglaries

2010 data for all countries except 2009 data for Denmark and France, and 2004 data for Italy.

This indicator measures the number of recorded burglaries per 100,000 population in a given year.

Source: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, United Nations Survey of Crime Trends and the Operations of Criminal Justice Systems Database.

Life satisfaction

2010 data for all countries.

Subjective measures of life satisfaction assess the extent to which individuals give a favourable evaluation to the overall quality of their life. Data are gathered through surveys that ask respondents “how satisfied” they are with their lives in general (and in specific domains), with respondents rating satisfaction on a scale of 0 to 10 (from lowest to highest levels of satisfaction).

Source: Data from the Gallup World Poll. Reported in OECD, How’s Life: Measuring Well-Being (Paris: OECD, 2011), 270.

Acceptance of diversity

2011 data for all countries except 2009 data for Switzerland and 2008 data for Norway.

Acceptance of diversity is measured using the percentage of people who responded “yes” to the question of whether their community was accepting of people from different racial, ethnic, and cultural groups.

Source: Gallup World Poll.

Social Network Suport

2012 data for Denmark, Finland, Switzerland, the U.K., and the United States. 2011 data for Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, and Sweden. 2009 data for the Netherlands. 2008 data for Norway.

Social network support is a measure of social support. It measures the proportion of people who report that they have relatives or friends they can count on for help in times of need.

Source: Gallup World Poll.

Suicides

2010 data for Australia, Austria, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. 2009 data for Canada, France, and Italy. 2008 data for the United States. 2007 data for Switzerland. 2006 data for Belgium and Denmark.

This indicator measures the number of deaths due to suicide per 100,000 population in a given year.

Source: OECD, Health Data 2012. Paris: Author, 2012.