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CountryAtlas
Government & public finance · Revenue & spending

Public social expenditure (% of GDP)

% of GDP · Annual · 42 of 218 countries (19 %) · 1980–2024
World average (population-weighted)
19.2 %
across 34 countries, 2023
Latest observation
2024
Source updated
CountryAtlas refreshed
11 Sep 2026
Snapshot 20260911T072322Z

World map

One value per country for the selected year. Hatched = no data.

No data available

Trend

Aggregate across the countries of a group, year by year. Computed by CountryAtlas from country values — no published aggregate is used.

Not enough countries to aggregate this indicator for World.

Highest and lowest

The five leaders and the five trailing countries, 2023.

Highest 5

Lowest 5

Compare countries

Pick up to five countries. Defaults to the three largest economies with data.

No series for the selected countries.

Definition

Definition
Unit
% of GDP (% GDP)
Frequency
Annual
Aggregation
none · No direction
Valid range
060

Sources & provenance

Every value on this page comes from one of these series, chosen per country by priority.

  1. Priority #1
    OECDOECD.ELS.SPD,DSD_SOCX_AGG@DF_SOCX_AGG*.A.SOCX.PT_B1GQ.ES10._T._T._Zok
    42 countries · 1,514 obs. · → 2024 · CC BY 4.0

    OECD — Social expenditure aggregates

    Open at source

Series-level selection: for each country the whole series comes from the highest-priority source that has any non-forecast value for it. If a lower-priority source is more than three years fresher, the freshest source wins instead. Non-chosen values are kept as alternatives, never discarded.

Countries without data

Typical reasons: the source does not survey small territories or micro-states; the statistical office reports with a lag of one to three years; the series is only compiled for member countries of the source organisation (OECD, EU, Eurostat); or a value exists but failed validation and is quarantined rather than shown.

Downloads & API

Every observation for this indicator, all countries and years, with provenance columns.

API example

One country, full history. Replace CAN by any ISO3 code or slug.

bash
curl -s "https://www.countryatlas.co/api/v1/series?country=CAN&indicator=social-expenditure-pct-gdp" | jq '.series[0] | {country: .country.name, unit, last: .stats.last, source: .provenance.source_name}'

API documentation