social indicators: approaches to monitoring (in)equality

Equality and Social Inclusion in Ireland Project

Social Indicators: Approaches to Monitoring (In)Equality

Paddy Hillyard and Grace Kelly

Project Co-ordinator: E McLaughlin, Queen’s University Belfast


1. Review the principal approaches in using social indicators to monitor progress and to assess the effectiveness of indicators which are available to measure equality and inequality, principally (but not exclusively) within the affective system.

2. Propose a framework that will challenge us to think about developing more innovative ways of selecting indicators for an equality agenda.


Role of Social Indicator• Evaluating policy

• Monitoring progress

• Identifying changes in society


Statistic of direct normative interest which facilitates concise, comprehensive and balanced judgement about the condition of major aspects of a society. It is, in all cases, a direct measurement of welfare and is subject to the interpretation that if it changes in the ‘right’ direction, while other things remain equal, things have gotten better, or people are better off. Thus, statistics on the numbers of doctors or policemen could not be social indicators, whereas figures on health or crime rates could be. (US Department of Health, Education and Welfaste 1969, p 971).


According to Land (20012) norm-referenced indicators of social well-being are:

“Measures of life circumstances on which there is a consensus among the general public that they are significant components of better or worse life circumstances”

(Land 2001: 398)


Social IndicatorsStatistics

Measures

Aggregate data


‘The aim of statistical work is generally to produce usable information form incomplete data. Sampling, imputation and estimation are the essence of statistics not totting up scores as in a cricket match. So official statistics are mostly the best estimates that can be made at the time they are produced, no more or less’(Statistics Commission 2005: p 6).


Concept System of social indicators

Human development

Human Development Index (HD)

Genuine progress Genuine Progress Index (GPI)

Poverty and Social exclusion/inclusion

Lakean Indicators

Opportunity for All

(LI)

(OFA)

Gender equality Gender related Development Index

Gender Empowerment Measure

(GDI)

(GEM)

Quality of life Citizens’ Report Card

Atlas of Canada

(CRC)

(Atlas)

Child welfare Children’s Service Plan (CSP)


A Few Lessons 1

OFA ● Government driven

● Emphasis on work

HDI ● Use of other sources where information is missing


A Few Lessons 2GPI ● Non-monetary aspects

● Holistic ● Given rise to community indicators movement

HDI ● Use of other sources where information is missing

CRC ● Consensual approachCYPC ● Desirable objectives


1. What inequalities matter normatively?2. How can they be mapped empirically?3. How could we better utilise existing available

data?4. How could we use data with different strengths

and weaknesses and analyse them within a common framework?

5. What is the best way to present the information to make it more accessible and understandable and reach a wider audience?


POTENTIAL SELECTION CRITERION

1. Incorporate information that has been proved to be important for decision-making

2. Seek a balance between absence and presence of equality

3. Prefer indicators where data availability and quality are high

4. Prefer indicators that are intuitively meaningful5. Settle for a mix of input, output and outcome indicators6. Prefer a range of both positive and negative indicators7. Favour indicators which are most determined by

government action

social indicators: approaches to monitoring (in)equality

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