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Over the last two decades, reading has shifted from taking place on paper to, increasingly, screens. As digitalisation spreads, there have been growing concerns about unbalanced access to new types of resources between socio-economically advantaged and disadvantaged students. PISA 2018 results show that while disadvantaged students are catching up in terms of access to digital resources, their access to cultural capital like paper books at home has diminished, and the socio-economic gap has been persistent over the last two decades. This policy brief draws education stakeholders’ attention to this issue and provides evidence for the discussion of equity in education by examining how access to books at home is related to students’ prevalent mode of reading books, their performance in reading and their enjoyment of reading.

This paper aims to support better-targeted and more homogeneous data collection and comparative analysis of regulatory oversight bodies (ROBs). To do so, it builds on relevant academic literature and available data to sharpen the definition of ROB used in OECD analytical work and policy discussions. It also discusses ROBs’ role within the regulatory governance cycle as well as various aspects related to regulatory oversight and co-ordination, with special attention to the overall institutional setting (including the relationships between various ROBs), context and objectives of regulatory reform, tasks and responsibilities, and associated accountability arrangements.

Social protection systems play a key stabilising role for individuals and societies, especially in the recent context of heightened uncertainties. This paper proposes a new empirical approach for quantifying the accessibility and value of income transfers following an earnings loss. The approach allows to estimate and monitor gaps in the accessibility and value of social transfers between so-called “standard” and “non-standard” workers. It first presents a methodology for assessing support levels for jobless individuals in specific circumstances that allows for comparisons across countries and over time. It then illustrates the approach using longitudinal survey data in 16 OECD countries.

Digital transformation is increasingly recognised as a means to help unlocking the benefits of more inclusive and sustainable growth and enhanced social well-being. In the environmental context, digitalisation can contribute to decoupling economic activity from natural resource use and their environmental impacts. This paper takes stock of the implications of digitalisation for the transition to a resource efficient and circular economy. Particularly, the paper provides insights into how digitalisation may fuel circular business models in the private sector, and discusses the role of digital technologies in addressing some important market failures that stand in the way to scaling up circular activities. It also offers a public sector perspective, by exploring how digital technologies support effective delivery of circular economy policies, enabling better policy design, reshaping government-citizen interaction and improving implementation of policies. Additionally, the paper maps potential unintended consequences of the digital circular transition, including general risks related to data, security, privacy and transparency, as well as rebound effects and unexpected regulatory interventions.

The Slovak population is set to age rapidly in the next decades, with significant impacts on economic growth and the sustainability of public finances. At the same time, the labour market exit age in Slovakia is among the lowest in the OECD. We use administrative data for Slovakia between 2013 and 2020 to analyse what factors influence the probability of employment exit of older workers. We find that statutory retirement ages have an important influence on the decision to leave employment. Higher educational attainment is associated with later employment exit, suggesting that the employment rate of older workers is likely to increase in the future as younger generations have higher educational attainment. We also find evidence that workers in sectors that are physically more demanding are exiting employment earlier. Impaired health also leads to significantly earlier employment exits. Finally living in a rural area or in areas with high unemployment is associated with earlier exit from the labour market.

Improving patient safety culture (PSC) is a significant priority for OECD countries as they work to improve healthcare quality and safety—a goal that has increased in importance as countries have faced new safety concerns connected to the COVID-19 pandemic. Findings from benchmarking work in PSC show that there is significant room for improvement. Across included survey findings from OECD countries, less than half (46% ) of surveyed health workers believe that important patient care information is transferred across hospital units and during shift changes. Just two-in-five surveyed health workers in OECD countries believe the staffing levels at their workplace are appropriate for ensuring patient safety (40%) or that mistakes and event reports would not held against them (41%). International benchmarking is a feasible and useful addition to exiting measurement initiatives on safety culture and may help accelerate necessary improvements in patient safety outcomes.

This report provides recommendations for regulatory and data governance frameworks to support the development of Mobility as a Service (MaaS) in the Brussels-Capital Region. These highlight the need to enable the development of a competitive and innovative MaaS ecosystem, with both public and private actors, in order to maximise the likelihood that sustainable MaaS business models will be developed. The work identifies the necessary scope of a new legal framework for MaaS and recommends how the existing regulation of mobility operators should be modified in order to integrate effectively with the MaaS framework. Finally, the work also addresses key data governance requirements, including data protection, transfer and reporting needed to support the development of MaaS.

This report examines the potential of data-driven approaches to improving transport infrastructure maintenance. It assesses trends in maintenance strategies, explores how the targeted use of data could make them more effective for different types of transport infrastructure, and looks into implications for policy.

The 2008 System of National Accounts (SNA) provides the international standards for compiling macro-economic statistics. In addition to the core set of accounts, the 2008 SNA also introduces satellite accounts, which are linked to, but distinct from, the central framework of national accounts. One type of satellite accounts involves some rearrangement of central classifications and the possible introduction of complementary elements, to give a more detailed description and monitoring of a certain theme, such as tourism, education, health, the digital economy and transport. They may involve some differences from the standards applied in the central framework, but they generally do not change the underlying concepts of the SNA in a fundamental way. The second type of satellite analysis is mainly based on concepts that are alternatives to those of the SNA. They may include a different production boundary, an enlarged concept of consumption or capital formation, an extension of the scope of assets, and so on. There is a growing demand for satellite accounts, especially for the first type of thematic satellite accounts. This paper aims to clarify the key steps for the compilation of such thematic satellite accounts, using the example of a satellite account for transport.