Health

• Table 3.11: Health indicators in OECD countries

• Table 3.12: Immunization

• Table 3.13: Number of child injury deaths among 1-14 year olds, 1991-1995

• Table 3.14: Injury deaths in large countries among 1-14 year olds

• Table 3.15: Injury deaths by age and gender

• Table 3.16: Adult and Child HIV/AIDS Cases and Deaths in Advanced Industrialized Nations, 2000

Poverty

An overall summary of Child Poverty trends in OECD countries from UNICEF's Innocenti Research Centre (Report Card No. 6, Florence, 2005):

• At the top of the child poverty league are Denmark and Finland with child poverty rates of less than 3 per cent. At the bottom are the United States and Mexico, with child poverty rates of more than 20 percent.
• Over the latest ten-year period for which comparable data are available, the proportion of children living in poverty has risen in 17 out of 24 OECD countries.
•  Norway is the only OECD country where child poverty can be described as ‘very low and continuing to fall’.
• Higher government spending on family and social benefits is clearly associated with lower child poverty rates.
• Four out of 13 OECD countries for which 1990s data are available saw a decline in earnings for the lowest-paid 25 percent of fathers. Seven countries saw a decline in earnings for the lowest-paid 10 percent.
• On average, government interventions reduce by 40 percent the rates of child poverty that would theoretically result from market forces being left to themselves.
• Governments in the countries with the world’s lowest levels of child poverty reduce ‘market poverty’ by 80 percent or more. Governments in the countries with the world’s highest poverty rates reduce ‘market poverty’ by only 10 percent to 15 percent.
• Variation in government policy appears to account for most of the variation in child poverty levels between OECD countries.
• No OECD country devoting 10 percent or more of GDP to social transfers has a child poverty rate higher than 10 percent. No country devoting less than 5 percent of GDP to such transfers has a child poverty rate of less than 15 percent.
• There is no fixed ratio between levels of government support and child poverty rates. Many OECD countries appear to have the potential to reduce child poverty below 10 percent without a significant increase in overall spending.
• In most OECD countries, increases in social spending over the decade of the 1990s appear to have been allocated mainly to pensions and to health care.
• Agreed definitions and measures of poverty are essential if policy targets are to be set and met. Relative income poverty measures need to be supplemented by direct measures of material deprivation.

• Table 3.21a: Child poverty by family type

• Table 3.21b: Child Poverty League

• Table 3.21c: Marginal-, middle-, and high-income children in 15 countries in the 1990s

• Table 3.21d: Child Poverty Rates Using Different Poverty Lines

• Table 3.23: Poverty Rates in Nineteen Rich Countries, by Age Group in the 1990s

• Table 3.24: Median equivalized disposable income by type of household

• Table 3.25: Child Poverty in Lone Parent Families Relative To Other Family Types

• Table 3.26: 'Absolute' Child Poverty

• Table 3.27a: Changes in Family Life, Labor Market Conditions and Government Policies

• Table 3.27b: The Impact of Taxes and Transfers

• Table 3.29: Poverty Profiles in Europe, 60% of Median Income (Percentages)

• Figure 3.21d: Level of child poverty using different percentages of overall median income as the poverty rate

• Figure 3.22: Level of child poverty using US absolute definition

Social Exclusion

Many countries have faced the limitations of poverty statistics and sought more extensive comparative data about social disadvantage. The concepts, "social exclusion" and "social inclusion" are increasingly employed in OECD countries, especially in the EU.

It is in this context that the Laeken European Council in December 2001 endorsed a set of criteria and a first set of 18 common statistical indicators for social inclusion, which allow monitoring in a comparable way of Member States progress towards the agreed objectives. The list is under review by the Indicators Sub-Group of the Social Protection Committee to develop and refine its coverage. These indicators should be considered as a consistent set covering four important dimensions of social inclusion (financial poverty, employment, health and education) (Eurostat, 2004).

The indicators: persons living in jobless households, long-term unemployment rate, very long-term unemployment rate, regional cohesion, early school leavers not in education or training, persons with low educational attainment, life expectancy at birth, and self-defined health status by income level.

Primary, however, are the income items: at-risk-of-poverty rate after transfers, inequality of income distribution (S80/S20 income quintile share ratio), persistent risk-of-poverty rate (60% median), and relative median at-risk-of-poverty gap. The secondary indicators are dispersion around the risk-of-poverty threshold, at-risk-of-poverty rate anchored at a moment in time,  at-risk-of-poverty rate before transfers, Gini coefficient, persistent risk-of-poverty rate (50% median).

Source: Eurostat (Luxembourg), Statistics in focus, 8/2003, 9/2003, 16/2004. Also Alfred J. Kahn and Sheila B. Kamerman (Editors), Beyond Child Poverty, The Social Exclusion of Children (Columbia University, Institute of Child and Family Policy, 2002). Also see Laura Bardone & Anne-Catherine Cuio, In-work Poverty, Statistics in focus, 5/2005, Eurostat, Luxembourg.

Table 3.18a: "Laeken" common indicators of social inclusion

Table 3.18b: Poverty and social exclusion in the EU after Laeken: employment, education, and life expectancy indicators

Education

Links to:
National Center for Education Statistics - Highlights from TIMMS-R Study, released December 2000

National Center for Education Statistics - Pursuing Excellence: Comparisons of International Eighth-Grade Mathematics and Science Achievement from a U.S. Perspective, 1995 and 1999, released December 2000.

• Table 3.31: Educational enrollment by type of program and age group, 1998

• Table 3.32: Age of school enrollment and duration

• Table 3.33: Mean scores on the reading and science scales in PISA 2000 and PISA 2003

• Table 3.34a: Percent of 15 to 20 year olds enrolled by age and level of education

• Table 3.34b: Tertiary education in EU-15

• Table 3.34c: School expectancy, 2002

• Table 3.35:  Percentage of the population not in education and unemployed in the total population, 2002

• Table 3.36: Education and work status of the youth population

• Table 3.36a: Education outcomes in EU-15

• Table 3.37: Education and work status of young men

• Table 3.38:  Education and work status of young women, 2002

• Table 3.39: Education: Performance

• Table 4.44 Education and work status of the youth population

• Table 4.45 Education and work status of young men

• Table 4.46 Education and work status of young women

Youth Indicators

• Table 3.41: Percentage of people who have neither enrolled in or completed upper secondary education

• Table 3.42: Total death rate for 15-24 year olds

• Table 3.43: Deaths from motor vehicle accidents among 5-14 year olds

For a discussion of international comparisons in injury mortality rates see, Gordon Smith, Langlois, Jean A., and Rockett, I.R.. International Comparisons of Injury Mortality: Hypothesis Generation, Ecological Studies, and Some Data Problems, Center for Disease Control.

• Table 3.44: Traffic deaths for two groups of young males, 1970 and 1994

• Table 3.45: Suicide rates among 15-24 year old males

• Table 3.46: Homicide deaths for young men aged 15-24 years old

• Table 3.47: Percent of students who report smoking daily

• Table 3.48: Percent of students who report having been drunk twice or more often

• Table 3.49: Percent of 15 year olds who report having had a sexual experience and using condoms during intercourse

Because of differing concepts regarding social indicators, or because of editorial considerations, some of the tables in this section also include background information along with indicators. Such tables may be accessed both under "Social Indicators" and under "Context and Background Data."

Last Updated July 2005