The Centre for the Study of Living Standards has developed an Index of Labour Market Well-being based on the conceptual components of the Index of Economic Well-being, namely consumption flows, stocks of wealth, inequality, and economic security. In contrast to the Index of Economic Well-being, however, the focus is on the well-being of individuals as workers. The Index of Labour Market Well-being therefore covers all persons of working age, both employed and unemployed, and includes 1) the average current return from work; 2) the aggregate accumulation of human capital, which enables future returns from work; 3) inequality in current returns from work; and 4) insecurity in the anticipation of future returns from work. Estimates have been developed for OECD countries and preliminary estimates for Canada and the United States, and the methodology is described in the papers below.

Data

Current data base for OECD countries (340Kb)
Based on the new methodology (Updated July 2003)

(This data base is also available by request in Excel format from info@csls.ca.)

Papers

An Index of Labour Market Well-Being for OECD Countries (381Kb)
Paper presented at the CSLS session on The Development of a New Architecture for Labor Market Statistics at the 2004 AEA meeting.
An earlier version is also available as CSLS Research Report 2003-05, September 2003.