Wednesday, May 6, 2009

OECD Society at a Glance report : Canada

The new "Society at a Glance" from the OECD has been released for 2009. I thought it might be worth summarizing some of the findings from their key findings on Canada:

  1. While Canada ranks 8th in terms of life satisfaction for OECD countries, it is one of only five countries that registered a decline between 2000 and 2006, along with Portugal, Hungary, the US and Japan.
  2. Canada has more immigrants than the United States, with 20% of the population foreign-born. The ratio is similar in Luxembourg, Switzerland, Australia and New Zealand.
  3. Nine out of ten Canadians feel that they enjoy good health, as do their neighbours in the US, and farther away, New Zealand, and they live a year longer than the OECD average.
  4. While approximately 25% of 15 year-olds in Canada report having sex, about 80% of these individuals use condoms regularly.
  5. Canada spends about 19% of net national income on public spending, less than the OECD average of 24% and slightly higher than the U.S. at 18%. At the same time, there appears to be an increase in poverty (generally speaking and among children) and income inequality in Canada. These increases are greater than the OECD average.

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