This sixth edition of Society at a Glance: Asia/Pacific provides an overview of social indicators for the region. Quantitative evidence on social indicators such as poverty, social expenditures, and demographic trends across countries in Asia and the Pacific helps economies identify where they can learn from the experience of other countries.
This edition of Society at a Glance Asia/Pacific puts a spotlight on fertility trends across the region. Chapter 1 presents data on trends for some countries across the region as well as policy indicators. It considers the international literature with a particular view to the Asia/Pacific region, but also summarises findings from OECD-wide regressions on the impact on fertility trends of public family policy, labour market factors, and household costs items. The chapter also draws from earlier work undertaken by the OECDs Employment, Labour and Social Affairs Committee, including OECD (2024), Society at a Glance: 2024: OECD Social Indicators; OECD (2023), Exploring Norway’s, Fertility, Work, and Family Policy Trends, and OECD (2019), Rejuvenating Korea.
Chapter 2 provides a guide to help readers in understanding the structure of OECD social indicators, while Chapters 3 to 7 present five social indicators each on General Context, Self-sufficiency, Equity, Health and Social Cohesion. This edition includes data for 36 countries, including the four OECD countries in the region, as well as Indonesia and Thailand, the two accession countries in the region.
A draft of this report was discussed at the meetings of the OECD Working Party on Social Policy and the regional meeting of family policy and social policy experts organised by the OECD/Korea Policy Centre in November 2024. Comments by delegates to these meetings are gratefully acknowledged.
This report was prepared by Willem Adema and Alexandre Lloyd with support from Pablo Minondo Canto, Júlia Cots Capell, Alicia Takeuchi and Maiko Yagi and contributions by Pauline Fron, Maxime Ladaique, Luca Lorenzoni, Takuyo Ozaki and Andrew Reilly. Professor Stuart Gietel‑Basten commented on Chapter 1 of the report.
This report was prepared in the OECD Directorate for Employment, Labour and Social Affairs (ELS) under the leadership of Stefano Scarpetta (Director of ELS), Mark Pearson (Deputy Director of ELS), and Monika Queisser (Senior Counsellor and Head of the Social Policy Division). The many colleagues who provided assistance include Marie‑Aurélie Elkurd and Lucy Hulett.