Italy lags behind on jobs, education in Better Life index

Italy came low in the OECD's updated Your Better Life Index on Tuesday for employment and education but was on high on the list for life expectancy. Out of the 36 countries examined in the OECD study, Italy ranked 34th for the percentage of working-age people holding jobs, 57%, and 28th for the percentage of the people who are long-term unemployed, 4.08% compared to an OECD average of 3%. In the area of education, Italy fell below average in two of the three parameters. It came 28th for the percentage of adults between the ages of 25 and 64 who had at least a secondary school diploma and 27th for the competence of its students, with a rating of 486 points against an OECD average of 497 points. Italy was in 26th place out of 36 in terms of the perceptions people have of the level of well-being in their own country, with an average rating of 6.1 points out of 10, well below the average. The nation came fourth for life expectancy though, in part thanks to a below-average percentage of the population that smokes and-or is obese. In 2009, life expectancy at birth in Italy was 82 years, two years above the OECD average of 80. Life expectancy for women is 85 years, compared with 79 for men. The OECD's Your Better Life Index aims to measure and compare national wellbeing in a way that goes beyond traditional GDP numbers.