The duration of working life indicator (DWL) measures the number of years a person aged 15 is expected to be active in the labour market throughout his/her life. This indicator has been developed and produced for analysis and monitoring under the Europe 2020 employment strategy. The indicator should complement other indicators by focussing on the entire life cycle of active persons and persons in employment rather than on specific states in the life cycle, such as youth unemployment or early withdrawal from the labour force. The development of life course policies is important in order to achieve more flexibility in the working life according to different stages of the life cycle. This indicator is derived from demographic data (life tables published in Eurostat online dataset demo_mlifetable) and labour market data (activity rates defined as in the online dataset lfsi_act_a but with unpublished detail by single age groups).
