But that headline figure masks some big differences in spending between countries. In Sweden, social spending stood at about a third of NNI in 2005 (the most recent year for which internationally comparable data is available) ; in Korea it was less than a 12th.
Countries differ also in their spending priorities, but despite that there are two categories that attract the lion’s share of social spending – health and spending on the elderly. Across the OECD as a whole, spending on the elderly stood at just under 8.3% of NNI in 2005 while for health the figure was about 7.3%. Combined, that amounts to about 15.6% of NNI, or about 64% of total public social spending.
See full Press Release.
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