OECD Well-being Data Monitor

All data in the Well-being Data Monitor can be downloaded on the OECD's Data Explorer under the Society topic as Well-being and beyond GDP. The data in both the Monitor and the Data Explorer are updated on a rolling basis and at least quarterly.

Current well-being data is available here. 

Future well-being data is available here. 

The metadata for the indicators in the database may also be found here.

The Well-being Data Monitor provides trend lines for each indicator, so you can see whether an outcome is improving or worsening over time.

The overall direction of change since 2015 is also highlighted by the colour of the indicator card:

• Green for improving
• Yellow for no clear change
• Red for deteriorating

This colour-coding is based on the simple point change between 2015 and the latest available year. If this difference exceeds an indicator-specific threshold, the change is considered meaningful – i.e. it is shown as either improving or deteriorating. Any differences below the threshold are shown as "no clear change". Details for how these thresholds are calculated for each well-being indicator, and their specific values, can be found in the Reader’s Guide in How’s Life? 2024.

All data points preceding a break in methodology (flagged with a “B” in the underlying database on the OECD Data Explorer) are removed to ensure fair and consistent comparisons over time.

When an underlying data source for an indicator does not provide an OECD average, a simple average across OECD countries is calculated. Two methods are used to preserve as much information as possible and provide the best possible estimate:

• Latest point average: uses the latest available value for every possible country.
• Time series average: includes only OECD countries with complete data between the baseline year (currently 2015) to the most recent common year.

Because the two methodologies differ, small variations may appear between the OECD average values shown on the indicator cards and those displayed in the trend lines throughout the Data Monitor. 

The entire database underlying the OECD Well-being Framework includes more than 80 indicators. To facilitate communication and reduce complexity, we have chosen a subset of headline indicators (24 for current well-being and 12 for future well-being). They are chosen to best meet a range of conceptual and practical criteria, including:

• Relevance for well-being and balance across the dimensions of the OECD Well-being Framework, including well-being gaps between population groups
• Alignment with other international and national well-being initiatives
• Policy relevance
• High statistical quality

The headline indicators also act as broad summary measures for their respective well-being dimensions. They typically cover most OECD countries and are collected more frequently and on a timelier basis than other indicators in the extended dashboard.

For more information on the selection criteria for headline indicators, see The future of the OECD Well-being Dashboard: Discussion Paper.

The OECD Well-being Data Monitor allows users to customise how indicators are displayed.

Indicator view options:

• Headline indicators (default): a shortened list of indicators selected for their relevance to each well-being dimension and their strong statistical quality. See the FAQ entry on headline indicators for more details.
• All indicators: displays all available indicators for current (50+) and future (30+) well-being. 

Indicator order options:

• By dimension (default): indicators are grouped according to the 11 dimensions of current well-being or the 4 types of capital for future well-being. The icon in the upper left-hand corner of each indicator card mirrors the OECD Well-being Framework icons and reflects the relevant well-being dimension.
• By performance:  for each country, indicators are ranked according to their position relative to outcomes in other OECD countries (by tiers, or whether they are the top, middle, or bottom third) and by whether the indicator has been improving, showing no clear change, or has deteriorated over time.

Currently, the OECD Data Monitor includes information on how well-being differs between men and women, people of different ages, and those with different educational achievements.

Other population breakdowns, such as by socio-economic background or migration status, are not yet included due to limited data availability and a lack of consistent international comparability across OECD countries.

For some indicators, estimates were pooled across years to boost the sample size (particularly for outcomes for young adults). The exact breakdowns are as follow:

• For data by sex: 2- or 3-year pooled averages.
• For data by age: 7-year pooled averages.
• For data by educational attainment: 5-year pooled averages.

To find which indicators are pooled and the exact years affected, see the Well-being Database Metadata.

Educational attainment refers to the highest level of education completed. In most cases, secondary education corresponds to ISCED levels 3–4, and tertiary education to ISCED levels 5–8.

Age ranges vary by indicator and are therefore only broadly comparable. In general:

• The young adult group refers to people aged 15/24 to 29 years old
• The middle-aged group refers to people aged 25/30 to 45/54 years old
• The older adult group refers to people aged 50/65 and over

The Better Life Index (BLI) was first released in 2011 alongside the OECD’s Well-being Framework. The Framework has since been refined as our understanding of well-being has changed and expanded. The Better Life Index has been updated in 2025 to reflect these changes and align with other tools and frameworks used by WISE.

The BLI allows users to select which dimensions of current well-being matter most to them. Using the headline indicators (see the question above), a summary score of how each OECD country performs relative to others is then calculated. To do this, several assumptions are made:

Assigning weights

The BLI begins with default weights which are set equal to 5 (the midpoint of possible weight values) for all current well-being dimensions.  

Weights are then assigned by the users as they build and customise their own BLI. Each dimension is rated from 0 (“not important”) to 10 (“very important”). The score given to each dimension is converted into a weight by dividing the score by the sum of the score given to all topics.

For example, if a user assigns of a score of 10 to Knowledge and Skills and 5 to the ten other dimensions, their BLI will weigh Knowledge and Skills by a factor of 10/60 (i.e. around 16.7%) and all the other topics by a factor of 5/60 (i.e. around 8.3%). The sum of all weights is 100%.

Normalising indicators

The BLI includes the 24 headline indicators of current well-being of the OECD Well-being Database. These indicators are expressed with different units (dollars, years, etc). To compare and aggregate them, these values must be normalised.

This normalisation is done according to a standard formula which converts the original values of the indicators into numbers varying in a range between 0 (for the worst possible outcome) and 1 (for the best possible outcome).

The formula is:

(value to convert – minimum value) / (maximum value – minimum value)

When an indicator measures a negative component of well-being (e.g. homicide) the formula used is:

1 – ((value to convert – minimum value) / (maximum value – minimum value))

Indicator aggregation

Each topic of well-being is measured by one to three indicators. After normalisation, indicators are averaged with equal weights. For instance, Work and Job Quality is measured with the three headline indicators for the well-being dimension: Employment rate, Gender wage gap and Long paid working hours. The Work and Job Quality score will thus be given by:

(Employment rate + Gender wage gap + Long paid working hours) / 3

Imputed values

Imputed values make up a very small number of observations (about 8% of the data) used to build the BLI. They refer to estimates of missing data points that are carried out through specific statistical techniques to fill in values for countries where there are none. Although these imputations do not significantly affect the results of the BLI, estimated values must be interpreted with caution.

The Current Well-being page of the Data Monitor will generally show where there are missing values that have been imputed, but since there is no minimum year for the BLI they are not always consistent. Visit the Current Well-being dataset in the OECD Well-being Database to see where all missing values are for your country.

Please note: Different versions of the Better Life Index are not comparable due the assumptions needed to calculate the BLI and indicator updates between releases.