Social policy covers a great number of issues which do not stand on their own but, as is increasingly recognised, are both diverse and interlinked. For example, tackling social exclusion involves simultaneously addressing barriers to labour market re-integration, health care issues and education. Coping with an ageing society requires new approaches to health care and employment, as well as to pensions. Social indicators have been developed to provide the broad perspective needed for any international comparison and assessment of social trends and policies. By linking social status and social response indicators across a broad range of policy areas, social indicators help readers to identify whether and how the broad thrust of social policies and societal actions are addressing key social policy issues. Social indicators provide a concise overview of social trends and policies while paying due attention to the different national contexts in which such policies are being pursued. OECD social indicators include both context indicators that illustrate national differences in social trends, and social status and response indicators, categorised in four broad and interdependent areas of social policy: self-sufficiency, equity, health and social cohesion. This edition focuses on disability and child well-being indicators in addition to providing a wide range of information on other areas. These include ageing populations, foreign-born population, employment, working mothers, replacement rates, child poverty, public social expenditure, potential years of life lost, health care expenditure, strikes, suicides and prisoners. (Author/publisher)
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