OECD - Society at a Glance 2019

This is the ninth edition of Society at a Glance, the OECDs biennial overview of social indicators. As with its predecessors, this report addresses the growing demand for quantitative evidence on social well-being and its trends across OECD countries. It updates some indicators included in the previous eight editions and introduces several new ones. Data on Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, China, India, Indonesia, the Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia and South Africa are included separately where available.

This edition of Society at a Glance puts the spotlight on lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and transgender (LGBT) individuals, as they still suffer from various forms of discrimination. Indeed, there is still a long way to go before LGBT people meet full-fledged acceptance in OECD countries. Only half of OECD countries have legalised same-sex marriage throughout their national territory, and less than a third allow for a change of gender on official documents to match gender identity without forcing the transgender person to undergo sterilisation, sex-reassignment surgery, hormonal therapy or a psychiatric diagnosis. Steps backward have also been witnessed. Yet, discrimination is not only ethically unacceptable, it also entails substantial economic and social costs. The inclusion of sexual and gender minorities should therefore become a top policy priority for OECD governments.

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This report was prepared by Pauline Fron, Maxime Ladaique, Veerle Miranda (project leader), Marie-Anne Valfort (), with valuable contributions from James Brown, Chris Clarke, Carrie Exton (Statistics and Data Directorate), Rodrigo Fernandez, Galle Ferrant (Development Centre), Elif Koksal-Oudot (Directorate for Science, Technology and Innovation), Michael Frster, Gatan Lafortune, Fabio Manca, Pascal Marianna, Marissa Plouin, Sarah Strapps and Ccile Thoreau from the Directorate for Employment, Labour and Social Affairs. Monika Queisser, Head of the OECD Social Policy Division, supervised the report.