Social expenditure aggregates by country
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...
What the numbers show
Social expenditure aggregates is currently reported for 33 countries. The highest value is 31.55 Percentage of GDP in Austria; the lowest is 7.55 Percentage of GDP in Peru.
The median across all reporting countries is 22.1 Percentage of GDP, and the mean is 21.3 Percentage of GDP.
The gap between the highest and lowest reporting country is a factor of about 4.
Over the past decade 23 countries rose and 10 fell. The largest increase was in Mexico (up 38.2%), and the largest decrease in Ireland (down 26.4%).
Social expenditure aggregates: full country ranking
| # | Country | Latest | Year | 10-year change | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Austria | 31.55 Percentage of GDP | 2024 | up 10.7% | rising |
| 2 | Finland | 31.44 Percentage of GDP | 2024 | up 3.3% | rising |
| 3 | France | 30.65 Percentage of GDP | 2024 | down 3.9% | rising |
| 4 | Belgium | 28.57 Percentage of GDP | 2024 | up 1.1% | rising |
| 5 | Germany | 27.85 Percentage of GDP | 2024 | up 9.5% | rising |
| 6 | Italy | 27.57 Percentage of GDP | 2024 | down 1.5% | rising |
| 7 | Denmark | 26.42 Percentage of GDP | 2024 | down 12.0% | rising |
| 8 | Sweden | 26.09 Percentage of GDP | 2024 | down 6.4% | flat |
| 9 | Spain | 25.87 Percentage of GDP | 2024 | up 2.6% | rising |
| 10 | Japan | 24.74 Percentage of GDP | 2022 | up 13.6% | rising |
| 11 | New Zealand | 24.62 Percentage of GDP | 2022 | up 15.3% | rising |
| 12 | Portugal | 24.11 Percentage of GDP | 2024 | down 3.4% | rising |
| 13 | Norway | 24.05 Percentage of GDP | 2024 | up 6.0% | rising |
| 14 | Luxembourg | 23.96 Percentage of GDP | 2024 | up 17.1% | rising |
| 15 | Greece | 23.74 Percentage of GDP | 2024 | down 7.5% | rising |
| 16 | United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland | 22.98 Percentage of GDP | 2023 | down 6.5% | rising |
| 17 | Czechia | 22.1 Percentage of GDP | 2024 | up 10.3% | rising |
| 18 | OECD | 21.23 Percentage of GDP | 2024 | up 4.6% | rising |
| 19 | Bulgaria | 20.5 Percentage of GDP | 2021 | up 32.4% | rising |
| 20 | United States of America | 19.81 Percentage of GDP | 2024 | up 7.6% | rising |
| 21 | Canada | 19.33 Percentage of GDP | 2022 | up 7.0% | rising |
| 22 | Iceland | 19.21 Percentage of GDP | 2024 | up 9.3% | rising |
| 23 | Hungary | 18 Percentage of GDP | 2024 | down 15.6% | falling |
| 24 | Romania | 17.57 Percentage of GDP | 2021 | up 14.1% | rising |
| 25 | Australia | 17.07 Percentage of GDP | 2022 | down 1.4% | rising |
| 26 | Israel | 16.28 Percentage of GDP | 2023 | up 5.6% | flat |
| 27 | Switzerland | 16 Percentage of GDP | 2024 | up 3.7% | rising |
| 28 | Ireland | 14.36 Percentage of GDP | 2024 | down 26.4% | falling |
| 29 | Colombia | 14.06 Percentage of GDP | 2023 | up 4.8% | rising |
| 30 | Chile | 12.88 Percentage of GDP | 2023 | up 27.7% | rising |
| 31 | Costa Rica | 12.64 Percentage of GDP | 2022 | up 8.0% | rising |
| 32 | Mexico | 10.03 Percentage of GDP | 2023 | up 38.2% | rising |
| 33 | Peru | 7.55 Percentage of GDP | 2023 | up 7.0% | rising |
Regions and income groups
Aggregates are excluded from the country ranking above so that a region can never outrank a country.
- Poland 23.07 Percentage of GDP
- Croatia 22.48 Percentage of GDP
- Slovenia 23 Percentage of GDP
- Slovak Republic 19.29 Percentage of GDP
- Latvia 19.7 Percentage of GDP
- Korea 15.33 Percentage of GDP
- Netherlands 18.87 Percentage of GDP
- Estonia 17.2 Percentage of GDP
- Lithuania 16.94 Percentage of GDP
- Türkiye 10.36 Percentage of GDP
About this data
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.