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Sources:

Per capita GDP
United Nations Statistics Division, National Accounts Section, available from the National Accounts Main Aggregates Database website, http://unstats.un.org/unsd/snaama/Introduction.asp (accessed December 2008).

Adult economic activity rate
International Labour Office, Table 1. Labour force participation rate, published in Key Indicators of the Labour Market (KILM) Fifth Edition, CD-ROM version (ISBN 978-92-2-020137-4). Also available at: http://www.ilo.org/public/english/employment/strat/kilm/ (accessed December 2008).

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Technical notes:

Per capita gross domestic product (GDP) in US dollars is calculated by the Statistics Division of the United Nations Secretariat primarily from official national accounts statistics in national currencies provided by national statistical services. GDP is the total unduplicated output of economic goods and services produced within a country as measured in monetary terms according to the United Nations System of National Accounts (SNA).

The exchange rates used for the conversion of national currency data into US dollars are the average market rates as published by the International Monetary Fund in the International Financial Statistics. Official exchange rates were used only when a free market rate was not available. For non-members of the Fund, the conversion rates used are the average of the United Nations operational rates of exchange. For international comparison, currency exchange rates applied to national accounts aggregates provide an important but highly approximate measure of national economic output and may differ substantially from comparisons based on actual purchasing power.

Adult economic activity rate refers to the percentage of the population aged 15 and over, unless otherwise specified, which is economically active. Data are compiled by the International Labour Office from a variety of national sources including labour force sample surveys, household surveys, population censuses and official estimates provided by national statistical services to ILO in publications and questionnaires.

The statistical concept of economically active population used here is that recommended by the International Conference of Labour Statisticians in 1982 and is designed to be consistent with the concept of economic production in the System of National Accounts. It defines as economically active all employed and unemployed persons, including those seeking work for the first time. It covers employers operating unincorporated enterprises, persons working on their own account, employees, unpaid contributing family workers, members of producers cooperatives and members of the armed forces. In the internationally recommended definition, production of primary products such as foodstuffs for own consumption and certain other non-monetary activities are considered economic activity and persons engaged in such production are to be considered economically active. In principle, any such work for as little as one hour a week is taken to define a person as economically active.

Specific elements of the standard concept of economically active population may differ substantially from country to country, such as the choice of time-reference period and the determination of minimum hours of work and unpaid family work, including production for own consumption. These differences may result, in particular, in the undercounting of women who are economically active. Also, in most countries the statistics of the economically active population relate only to employed and unemployed persons above a specified age while in some there is no such age provision in the definition of economic activity.