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Irish 'most likely' to pay higher taxes for better healthcare - OECD

A new OECD report has found Irish people are the most likely to say they would pay more in taxes ...
Jack Quann
Jack Quann

17.18 27 Mar 2019


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Irish 'most likely' to pay hig...

Irish 'most likely' to pay higher taxes for better healthcare - OECD

Jack Quann
Jack Quann

17.18 27 Mar 2019


Share this article


A new OECD report has found Irish people are the most likely to say they would pay more in taxes for better healthcare.

That was just one of the findings of the 'Society at a Glance 2019' report, which examined social indicators.

The report presented 25 indicators, several of which were new, and included data for 36 OECD member countries and key partners.

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The report also featured a special chapter on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people.

On this, the report found there were as many homosexuals as bisexuals in Ireland.

Ireland was one of the few countries where the number of bisexuals and homosexuals were on a par.

The study also found that people were willing to pay for better pensions and healthcare.

In 19 of the 21 surveyed countries, respondents were more likely to agree than disagree that government should increase spending on pensions, even if it meant taxes would rise and some other programmes needed to be cut.

An average of almost 40% said they would be willing to pay an extra 2% of their own income in taxes for better healthcare and pensions.

But Irish respondents were the most likely to say they would pay more in taxes for better healthcare - at 51%.

This was followed by Portugal (49%), Greece and Chile (both 48%).

Fertility rates and immigration

Other findings showed Ireland and France had the highest fertility rate in Europe - and the fourth and fifth highest rates in the OECD.

The lowest fertility rates were found in south Europe, Japan and Korea - with on average just one child per women in the latter.

In the EU, interaction with immigrants occurs more often in the neighbourhood than at the workplace - with respectively 44% and 28% of the native born population reporting an interaction with immigrants from non-EU countries at least once a week.

Ireland, Austria and southern European countries showed native-born people interact most with non-EU-born people in their neighbourhood.

Interaction with immigrant colleagues was most common in Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands.

On average in the OECD, pensions and health services accounted for two-third of total expenditure.

In a majority of countries, pensions were the largest expenditure area.

But in Ireland and Denmark, the largest share was devoted to income support for the working age population.

HIV rates

Ireland also had one of the highest rates of newly-diagnosed HIV cases in 2016.

For the 28 European OECD countries for which data was available, nearly 32,000 people were newly-diagnosed that year.

Latvia and Estonia had the highest rates of new HIV cases (at 17-18 per 100,000 population), followed by Ireland, Portugal and Luxembourg (at 10-11 per 100,000 population).

Hungary and the Slovak Republic had the lowest rates, with around two cases per 100,000 population.

In Estonia and Portugal, infection rates decreased rapidly although they remained high - while infection rates doubled in Iceland and Lithuania, albeit from rather low initial levels.

Men account for three-quarters of the newly diagnosed HIV cases.

Cyberbullying

The report also found that more than one in 10 adolescents across the OECD were the victim of cyberbullying.

The highest cyberbullying rates were found in Latvia (almost one in four), as well as in Estonia, Hungary, Ireland and the United Kingdom (Scotland) - where more than one-in-five adolescents reported cyberbullying.

The lowest rate was in Greece, with only 5% of adolescents reported having been victim to cyberbullying.

Teenage girls were more likely than teenage boys to reported having been victim to cyberbullying.

But the OECD noted that the gender difference was especially large in Ireland and the United Kingdom, where cyberbullying rates for girls exceed those for boys by more than 10 percentage points.

Only in Spain, boys reported higher rates of cyber-bullying than girls, by three percentage points.


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Cyberbullying Fertility Rates HIV Rates Healthcare Higher Taxes Immigration Lgbt OECD Society At A Glance

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