Boosted by high immigration, population growth rates in Australia, Canada, Ireland and New Zealand have been among the fastest of all OECD countries over recent years. At the same time the populations of the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland have been falling amid low birth rates and the departures each year of thousands seeking  work abroad.

Migration trends are among more than 150 major indicators to be found in the OECD’s Factbook 2007, an annual digest of economic, social and environmental statistics which helps track the changes shaping our increasingly globalised world. 

The OECD Factbook 2007 was launched today at a press conference in Rome.

The OECD says that the Factbook is central to a long-term OECD programme on using statistics to measure and foster progress  in our societies. Identifying the most accurate and relevant data is becoming an increasing challenge for policy-makers and citizens faced with the often bewildering mass of information available today. Many OECD governments are thus developing “key indicators” for this task.

As part of the OECD programme, Rome is also hosting an international conference on measuring subjective well-being. Is happiness measurable and what do those measures mean for policy? takes place from 2-3 April at the University of Rome ‘Tor Vergata’. The conference, which is open to the press, will bring together experts from a range of fields to discuss how the measurement of subjective well-being can affect economic models and especially policies.

OECD member countries - - Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovak Republic, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States (30 Member Countries).