Publications & Documents

Over the past few decades, economies and technologies have changed in ways that have made people’s economic prospects more insecure. While non-standard work and digital transformation have created opportunities for many, they have also exposed individuals to fluctuations in their incomes, known as 'income instability', as have major recent shocks. Recognising that individuals’ jobs and circumstances can change multiple times in a year, this report uses novel techniques to identify who is most exposed to income instability in European OECD countries and examines the effects it has on their lives, social mobility, and inequality. Income instability can be difficult to manage for individuals who lack the financial resources to smooth their incomes. In this report, people facing the twin problems of exposure and vulnerability to income instability are considered to be economically insecure. Economic insecurity falls predominantly on people with weak attachments to the labour force and on those who are not well-placed to leverage the benefits of digitalisation. People at risk of economic insecurity are more likely to worry about losing their jobs in the future than economically secure individuals and, as shown in other research, experience poor health, food insecurity, and poor childhood development outcomes, which can impede social mobility. Finally, the report reviews a range of policies to improve the timeliness of social protection to better support people with highly unstable incomes and explores options to help those most at risk of economic insecurity build financial buffers.

The Government of Australia has made improving gender equality one of its core priorities, recognising the potential social and economic benefits that it can bring. This OECD Review assists Australia in embedding gender considerations in policy and budget decisions. It draws upon best practices across OECD countries and sets out a series of actions to enable the federal government to strengthen gender impact assessments and gender budgeting. This will help target government policy and resources towards better and fairer social and economic outcomes.

One in seven working age adults identifies as having a disability in OECD countries. Many of them are excluded from meaningful work and have low levels of income and social engagement. Governments can help create an environment that supports social and labour market integration for people with disability. This report reviews the effectiveness of the social protection system for people with disability in Italy and summarises the results of a pilot carried out in four regions testing an alternative disability assessment. The current assessment process can sometimes deny services to people in need of support while being generous to people with significant health problems but who are not experiencing severe disability. A disability assessment that takes medical and functional aspects into account helps to direct services and resources to those most in need and to harmonise access to disability support across the country. Implementing disability reform has proved to be difficult in Italy in the past decade. This report provides evidence that reform can improve outcomes for people with disability.

Drawing on data from the Opportunities module of the 2022 wave of the OECD Risks that Matter survey, this Policy Insights looks at people’s concerns about inequality and examines their views on the role held by different actors – ranging from public and private sectors to civil society and citizens – in reducing economic divides. The analysis exposes a widespread concern about the multiple facets of inequality: on average, nearly seven-in-ten respondents think that economic resources should be distributed more equally and up to half of them believe that non-economic disparities are too high. Acknowledging the complex nature of inequality, respondents also recognise the need for a multi-stakeholder approach. National governments are seen as key but not exclusive players, and more than half of respondents believe that both public and private actors have a key role to play in addressing inequality.

Understanding people’s beliefs of social mobility is key to designing and implementing policy mixes that address structural disparities and garner broad public support. Beliefs in social mobility may help strengthen the social contract; however, strongly held views on the role of individual effort in determining success in life can also contribute to diminishing support for policies designed to promote greater opportunity for vulnerable populations and reduce inequality. Drawing on data from the Opportunities module of the 2022 wave of the OECD Risks that Matter survey, this policy insights investigates people’s views of the main determinants of social mobility in 27 OECD countries. On average, 60% of respondents believe that hard work is essential or very important in determining one’s social position. However, of this majority, only one-fifth believe that working hard is the only key factor to success.

People with disability face persisting difficulties in the labour market. There are concerns that AI, if managed poorly, could further exacerbate these challenges. Yet, AI also has the potential to create more inclusive and accommodating environments and might help remove some of the barriers faced by people with disability in the labour market. Building on interviews with more than 70 stakeholders, this report explores the potential of AI to foster employment for people with disability, accounting for both the transformative possibilities of AI-powered solutions and the risks attached to the increased use of AI for people with disability. It also identifies obstacles hindering the use of AI and discusses what governments could do to avoid the risks and seize the opportunities of using AI to support people with disability in the labour market.

In Europe, the introduction of the Council Recommendation establishing a European Child Guarantee has helped put concerns relating to childhood disadvantages higher up on the policy agenda. Structured around ensuring effective access to a series of key child services, the ultimate goal of the European Child Guarantee is to promote opportunities for children from disadvantaged backgrounds and help stop the transmission of poverty and social exclusion across generations. But as European countries move forward with their plans for implementation, it is important to understand what child disadvantage looks like, as well as the potential lifelong effects it can have on children’s lives. This paper explores childhood socio-economic disadvantage in Austria from a comparative perspective. It sketches the breadth and depth of child poverty and material deprivation in Austria today, and discusses the potential longer-run economic costs of childhood disadvantage once disadvantaged children reach adulthood, based on findings from Clarke et al. (2022). It also discusses key policy challenges Austria will need to consider to tackle childhood socio-economic disadvantage.

Long-term unemployment remains a structural challenge for most OECD countries. Despite major efforts to address this issue, the efficiency and effectiveness of many existing active labour market policies are limited for jobseekers who face major vulnerabilities and have no ties to the labour market. Therefore, there is a need for innovative approaches that specifically address the barriers faced by long-term unemployed individuals in their labour market (re)integration. This paper discusses examples of promising practices from across Europe, which can serve as a source of inspiration for policymakers seeking new approaches to assist vulnerable jobseekers in overcoming the challenge of long-term unemployment.

The pandemic resulted in a significant increase in the number of deaths in many OECD countries. With detailed data now available by age and sex, this OECD Health Working Paper examines the trends and differences in mortality patterns over the three-year span of the pandemic. While a simple comparison of the raw number of deaths with reference to a historical base period has proved to be an important and straightforward indicator to assess the overall impact of the pandemic, most OECD countries have undergone major changes in population size and structure. This paper reviews the methodology of calculating changes in mortality to take account of such demographic trends and, in producing a revised set of estimates using adjusted numbers of deaths, highlights some important variations in mortality across years, countries and age groups.

Women’s employment rates and wages are still lagging those of men across OECD countries, with average employment and wage gaps now around 15% and 12% respectively. Gaps narrowed at a relatively modest pace over the past decade, calling for further policy action. A lack of affordable high-quality childcare is often an obstacle to women’s participation in the labour market and notably to working full time. A very unequal sharing of parental leave between parents and challenges upon return to work further hampers women’s careers. Biases in the tax system may discourage women from working in some countries. Women face disadvantage in accessing management positions and entrepreneurship. A range of policies can help reduce gender gaps, including better childcare provision, incentivising parents to better share parental leave, re-skilling and upskilling on return from parental leave, encouraging gender equality within firms, integration programmes for foreign-born women, promoting women entrepreneurship and financial inclusion, and levelling taxation for second earners. Moreover, the multiple dimensions and root causes of gender inequality call for mainstreaming gender across policy domains.