Latest Documents

The COVID-19 pandemic has spurred perhaps the largest expansion of social protection systems in seventy years. Yet many people are still deeply affected by the crisis and are calling for even more help. Drawing on 25 000 responses across 25 OECD countries, the 2020 Risks that Matter survey finds that people are worried about keeping their jobs, paying the bills and staying healthy. Almost seven out of ten respondents say that their government should be doing more to ensure their economic and social security, and many are willing to pay more in taxes to support this. The perspectives presented in this report offer important lessons for how to expand and reform social protection as our societies and economies slowly start to recover from the pandemic.

Ensuring that LGBTI people – i.e. lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender and intersex individuals – can live as who they are without being discriminated against or attacked is a concern worldwide. Discrimination against LGBTI people remains pervasive, while its cost is massive. It lowers investment in human capital due to bullying at school. It also reduces economic output by excluding LGBTI talents from the labour market and impairing their mental health, hence their productivity. This report provides a comprehensive overview of the extent to which laws in OECD countries ensure equal treatment of LGBTI people, and of the complementary policies that could help foster LGBTI inclusion. The report first identifies the legislative and regulatory frameworks in the areas of civil rights, protection against discrimination and violence, as well as health that are critical for the inclusion of sexual and gender minorities. The report then explores whether these laws are in force in OECD countries and examines the margin for further improvement. Finally, the report investigates the broader policy measures that should accompany LGBTI-inclusive laws in order to strengthen the inclusion of LGBTI people.

Violence against women remains a global crisis. Worldwide, more than one in three women have experienced physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence in their lifetime. OECD’s inaugural conference on violence against women, entitled 'Taking Public Action to End Violence at Home,' facilitated a survivor-centred exchange of ideas and experiences. Held on 5-6 February 2020, attendees convened to share experiences, practices and ideas on how to prevent, address, and eradicate intimate partner violence (IPV), a particularly insidious form of violence against women. Just a few weeks after this OECD conference concluded, the regional health crisis of COVID-19 in Asia had turned into a global pandemic. In less than a month, the entire world was grappling with the massive health, social, and economic effects of the crisis – including the consequences of millions of women becoming trapped at home with their abusers, as governments implemented containment measures to stop the spread of the virus. The issues, challenges, and solutions to intimate partner violence that were debated at OECD conference have taken on a new and even more pressing urgency in the face of the global crisis.

The series Investing in Youth builds on the expertise of the OECD on youth employment, social support and skills. It covers both OECD countries and key emerging economies. The report on Korea presents new results from a comprehensive analysis of the situation of young people in Korea, exploiting various sources of survey-based and administrative data. It provides a detailed assessment of education, employment and social policies in Korea from an international perspective, and offers tailored recommendations to help improve the school-to-work transition. Earlier reviews in the same series have looked at youth policies in Brazil (2014), Latvia and Tunisia (2015), Australia, Lithuania and Sweden (2016), Japan (2017), Norway (2018), and Finland and Peru (2019).

The Netherlands performs well on many measures of gender equality, but the country faces a persistent equality challenge between women and men: the high share of women in part-time jobs. Nearly 60% of women in the Dutch labour market work part-time, roughly three times the OECD average for women, and over three times the rate for Dutch men. The Netherlands’ gender gap in hours worked contributes to the gender gap in earnings, the gender gap in pensions, women’s slower progression into management roles, and the unequal division of unpaid work at home. These gaps typically widen with parenthood, as mothers often reduce hours in the labour market to take on more unpaid care work at home. The Dutch government must redouble its efforts to achieve gender equality. Better social policy support can help level the playing field between men and women, contribute to more egalitarian norms around the division of work, and foster more gender-equal behaviour in paid and unpaid work in the Netherlands.

The series Investing in Youth builds on the expertise of the OECD on youth employment, social support and skills. It covers both OECD countries and key emerging economies. The report on Finland presents new results from a comprehensive analysis of the situation of young people in Finland, exploiting various sources of survey-based and administrative data. It provides a detailed assessment of education, employment and social policies in Finland from an international perspective, and offers tailored recommendations to help improve the school-to-work transition. Earlier reviews in the same series have looked at youth policies in Brazil (2014), Latvia and Tunisia (2015), Australia, Lithuania and Sweden (2016), Japan (2017), Norway (2018) and Peru (2019).

Middle-class households feel left behind and have questioned the benefits of economic globalisation. In many OECD countries, middle incomes have grown less than the average and in some they have not grown at all. Technology has automated several middle-skilled jobs that used to be carried out by middle-class workers a few decades ago. The costs of some goods and services such as housing, which are essential for a middle-class lifestyle, have risen faster than earnings and overall inflation. Faced with this, middle classes have reduced their ability to save and in some cases have fallen into debt. This report sheds light on the multiple pressures on the middle class. It analyses the trends of middle-income households through dimensions such as labour occupation, consumption, wealth and debt, as well as perceptions and social attitudes. It also discusses policy initiatives to address the concerns raised by the middle class, by protecting middle-class living standards and financial security in the face of economic challenges.