In the face of the substantial ageing of population expected to occur in OECD countries over coming decades, policies that boost labour-force participation attract considerable interest. There remain large cross-country divergences in participation rates that are largely accounted for by...

Education has been given high priority by India’s central and state governments and continues to grow fast. School access has been expanded by investment in school infrastructure and recruitment of teachers. In higher education too, the number of providers continues to rise rapidly. A new law...

This paper presents the results from a new model for projecting growth of OECD and major non-OECD economies over the next 50 years as well as imbalances that arise. A baseline scenario assuming gradual structural reform and fiscal consolidation to stabilise government-debt-to GDP ratios is...

Although job creation has improved, since the end of the 2007-08 recession, the effects of the recession on the labour market remain severe. Unemployment duration is still extremely high, and many have withdrawn from the labour market altogether. Because the weakness is largely cyclical in...

As its workforce ages and major economies shift towards producing higher value-added goods and services, New Zealand will face increasing challenges to remain globally competitive and maintain high living standards. Future growth will need to come increasingly from productivity gains, and...

The NZ labour market is among the most flexible in the OECD, and outcomes for its young people have been among the best. However, labour-market opportunities are heavily determined by initial education, where New Zealand’s system is also successful and innovative in many ways. Average PISA...

The labour market in Russia is very flexible. Firms adjust to economic shocks through wage cuts, working hour reductions and minimisation of non-wage labour costs. Workers react by changing jobs. This results in a high and stable overall employment rate, but also high wage inequality,...

In recent years, policymaking in China has put increasing emphasis on stemming the growth in inequality, which had been fairly steep since the 1980s. Policy action has taken the form of regional development measures and of reforms of various aspects of the social safety net broadly defined. The...

The average educational attainment of US students is weak by international comparison. For example, mean results of PISA test scores are below the OECD average. This is despite substantial resources devoted to the schooling system. One partial explanation for this is that academic standards,...