Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development

There is more to life than the cold numbers of GDP and economic statistics. This dataset contains the 2018 data of the Better Life Index which allows you to compare well-being across countries as well as measuring well-being, based on 11 topics the OECD has identified as essential, in the areas of material living conditions and quality of life. Abstract: Your Better Life Index aims to involve citizens in the debate on measuring the well-being of societies, and to empower them to become more informed and engaged in the policy-making process that shapes all our lives. Each of the 11 topics of the Index is currently based on one to three indicators. Within each topic, the indicators are averaged with equal weights. The indicators have been chosen on the basis of a number of statistical criteria such as relevance (face-validity, depth, policy relevance) and data quality (predictive validity, coverage, timeliness, cross-country comparability etc.) and in consultation with OECD member countries. These indicators are good measures of the concepts of well-being, in particular in the context of a country comparative exercise. Other indicators will gradually be added to each topic.  Notes: Data cannot be compared between different editions of the Better Life Index. For more information on change over time, please contact wellbeing@oecd.org.

The OECD, in cooperation with the EU, has developed a harmonised definition of urban areas which overcomes previous limitations linked to administrative definitions (OECD, 2012). According to this definition an urban area is a functional economic unit characterised by densely inhabited “city core” and “commuting zone” whose labour market is highly integrated with the core. The Metropolitan database provides indicators of 649 OECD metropolitan areas identified in 33 OECD countries and the functional urban areas of Colombia. Comparable values of population, GDP, employment, and other indicators are presented.

http://www.oecd.org/els/soc/IDD-Metadata.pdf

While much of the comparative evidence on inequalities that is currently available refers to household income, wealth is a critical dimension of households’ economic well-being. How wealth is distributed is important for equity and inter-generational mobility, but also for the stability of the economic system and for its resilience to shocks. While the lack of comparative evidence in this field reflects the absence of an agreed standard that statistical offices could use when collecting this information, this gap has been addressed by the OECD with the release in 2013 of a set of statistical guidelines in this field. In 2013, the OECD issued a set of ‘Guidelines’ for micro statistics on household wealth (OECD, 2013) and an increasing number of countries have engaged in the collection of micro statistics in this field (European Central Bank, 2013). Building on these initiatives as well as others, such as the Luxembourg Wealth Study (Sierminska et al, 2006) which have informed previous OECD analysis (Jantii et al., 2008), the OECD has updated the data on the distribution of household wealth for OECD countries, based on the set of conventions and classifications proposed in the 2013 OECD Guidelines.