Germany vs Italy: Public and private social expenditure

Germany
27.85 Percentage of GDP
in 2024
Italy
27.57 Percentage of GDP
in 2024
Germany rank
5th
Italy rank
6th

Public and private social expenditure over time

  • Germany
  • Italy
0102030198020022024

How they compare

Germany currently reports 27.85 Percentage of GDP against 27.57 Percentage of GDP in Italy, a difference of 0.28 Percentage of GDP.

The two have swapped places 4 times across 45 shared years of data; in 1980 it was Germany ahead.

Germany ranks 5th and Italy ranks 6th of 33 countries.

Across the 5 decades both report, Germany averaged higher in 3 and Italy in 2.

Head to head by decade

Decade Germany Italy Difference Ahead
1980s 22.22 Percentage of GDP 19.53 Percentage of GDP 2.69 Percentage of GDP Germany
1990s 24.68 Percentage of GDP 21.66 Percentage of GDP 3.02 Percentage of GDP Germany
2000s 25.64 Percentage of GDP 23.92 Percentage of GDP 1.72 Percentage of GDP Germany
2010s 25.83 Percentage of GDP 27.46 Percentage of GDP 1.63 Percentage of GDP Italy
2020s 28.24 Percentage of GDP 29.13 Percentage of GDP 0.8922 Percentage of GDP Italy

Averages of every year both report within each decade.

Frequently asked questions

Which has higher public and private social expenditure, Germany or Italy?
Germany, at 27.85 Percentage of GDP against 27.57 Percentage of GDP in Italy as of 2024.
What is the difference in public and private social expenditure between Germany and Italy?
0.28 Percentage of GDP, with Germany ahead.
How many years of comparable data are there for Germany and Italy?
45 years are reported by both, from 1980 to 2024.
How do Germany and Italy rank globally for public and private social expenditure?
Germany ranks 5th and Italy ranks 6th of 33 countries.
Where does this data come from?
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, published as Public and private social expenditure. Statizoid refreshes it automatically from the source and publishes the full history for both places.

Individual pages

Share, cite or embed this page

Cite this page

Germany vs Italy: Public and private social expenditure. Statizoid, drawing on Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Retrieved 21 August 2026, from https://social-development.statizoid.com/compare/public-and-private-social-expenditure/germany/italy/

Embed or link this data

Paste this into a page to link back to these figures. The data itself is free to reuse under OECD Terms and Conditions (attribution required); please keep the attribution.

<a href="https://social-development.statizoid.com/compare/public-and-private-social-expenditure/germany/italy/">Germany vs Italy: Public and private social expenditure</a> — Statizoid

About this data

Indicator
Public and private social expenditure
Unit
Percentage of GDP
Source
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
Licence
OECD Terms and Conditions (attribution required)
Coverage
43 places, 1,559 data points, 1980–2024
Last refreshed

The OECD Social Expenditure Database (SOCX) has been developed in order to serve a growing need for indicators of social policy. It includes reliable and internationally comparable statistics on public and mandatory and voluntary private social expenditure at programme level. SOCX provides a unique tool for monitoring trends in aggregate social expenditure and analysing changes in its composition. It covers 38 OECD countries and some accession countries for the period 1980-2021/23 and estimates for aggregates for 2022-24. A Social Expenditure Update can be found under www.oecd.org/en/data/datasets/social-expenditure-database-socx.htm. The main social policy areas are as follows: Old age, Survivors, Incapacity-related benefits, Health, Family, Active labor market programmes, Unemployment, Housing, and Other social policy areas. This version also includes estimates of net total social spending for 2021 for 38 OECD countries. SOCX aggregated data as well as sources and methodology are described in The OECD SOCX Manual – 2019 edition- A guide to the OECD Social Expenditure Database.