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Society at a Glance 2009

OECD Social Indicators

image of Society at a Glance 2009

Society at a Glance offers a concise quantitative overview of social trends and policies across the OECD. This 2009 edition includes a wide range of information on social issues – such as demography and family characteristics, employment and unemployment, poverty and inequality, social and health care expenditure, and work and life satisfaction –as well as a guide to help readers understand the structure of OECD social indicators. 

In addition to updating some of the indicators from previous editions, Society at a Glance 2009 adds several new and innovative social indicators, including adult height, perceived health status, risky youth behaviour and bullying. For the first time, the report also provides a condensed set of headline social indicators summarising social well-being in OECD countries. In addition, a special chapter examines leisure time across the OECD.

English Also available in: French, German, Korean

Age of labour force exit

Retirement is associated with cessation of work and receipt of a pension. Actual retirement ages are difficult to measure directly without internationally comparable longitudinal data, so international comparisons must rely on indirect measures from cross-sectional data. Indirect measures regard persons above a specified age as “retired” if they are not in the labour force at the time of the survey (average age at labour force exit). Net movements into retirement are proxied by the changes over time in the proportion of the older population not in the labour force. This indirect measure is used in ongoing OECD reviews of older workers. It measures the average effective age of retirement. The official age of retirement is also complex to pin down, especially when retirement is based on fixed years of pension contribution. For more discussion, see OECD (2007).

English Also available in: French

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