The selected 75 countries

The core of GlobalWageIndicator is the scaling up of the WageIndicator operation to 75 countries, in which 86 percent of the world's population lives. Although the choice of the 75 countries is based on a number of criteria, it is a flexible list. The Latin American teams prefer to include all Central and Latin American countries in one stroke instead of just 10 countries.

• Of course the 45 countries (by May 2009) where the WageIndicator is operational are included.
• Second, large countries -all those with a population over 25 million in 2005- are on the list.
• Third, medium-sized countries, i.e. with a population over 2.5 million in 2005, and with a high Internet penetration rate (> 200/1000 inhabitants) are selected.
• Fourth, countries with a population over 5 million and listed in some major cross-country data collections (such as the Luxembourg Income Study or the World Values Survey) are also selected.

Small and/or politically unstable countries are excluded.

These criteria may change over time, and therefore the list of countries presented here too.