Social indicators
Social indicators are signposts that help measure progress
towards a desired outcome. Indicators are chosen because they measure
the outcome of interest directly (for example, the unemployment rate in
the Paid Work domain) or because they are known to be a good predictor
of, or are associated with, that outcome (for example, cigarette
smoking in the Health domain).
The use of social indicators means we can measure trends over
time by compressing the sizeable body of statistical information in an
outcome domain to a few high-level measures. For example, we use four
indicators to represent the desired outcomes in the Knowledge and
Skills domain. Though the indicators do not describe the state of
knowledge and skill acquisition in New Zealand in detail, they
provide important summary information on outcomes in that domain (for
example, educational attainment of the adult population) or they act as
key predictors of future outcomes (for example, participation in early
childhood education).
One of the key features of a social indicator is that any
change can be interpreted as progress towards, or a movement away from,
the desired outcome. This distinguishes social indicators from some
social statistics that cannot be interpreted in this way. For example,
while a change in the average age at which New Zealand women give
birth to their first child is an important social statistic, it cannot
be said to be necessarily "good" or "bad" for social wellbeing.
Indicators have been selected against the following criteria,
first established in The Social Report 2001:
- relevant to the social outcome of interest –
the indicator should be the most accurate statistic for measuring both
the level and extent of change in the social outcome of interest, and
it should adequately reflect what it is intended to measure
- based on broad support – ideally there
should be wide support for the indicators chosen so they will not be
changed regularly
- grounded in research – there should be
sound evidence on key influences and factors affecting outcomes
- able to be disaggregated – it should be
possible to break the data down by age, sex, socio-economic status,
ethnicity, region and, where possible, to the individual (or smallest
group possible), so we can compare outcomes for different groups
- consistent over time – the usefulness of
indicators is related directly to the ability to track trends over
time, so indicators should be consistent over time
- statistically sound – the measurement of
indicators needs to be methodologically rigorous
- timely – data needs to be collected and
reported regularly and frequently to ensure indicators are providing
up-to-date information
- enable international comparisons – as well
as reflecting the social goals of New Zealanders, indicators need to be
consistent with those used in international programmes so we can make
comparisons.
As some indicators perform well against some criteria and
poorly against others, trade-offs are necessary. For example, we base
most of the Economic Standard of Living indicators on Household
Economic Survey data, rather than on data from the New
Zealand Income Survey attached to the Household Labour Force
Survey. We do this because it provides a more accurate measure of
annual income and hence is a more relevant indicator to the outcome of
interest. The trade-off is we are only able to update these indicators
every three years, rather than every year, and the sample size is
smaller.
In some outcome domains, such as Health, there is an abundance
of good data from which to draw appropriate indicators. In other
outcome domains, in particular Physical Environment and Cultural
Identity, there is less good-quality, relevant data available,
resulting in fewer indicators in these domains.
We use the most recently published data available. This has
the advantage of accuracy, as the numbers have been verified, but it
means some of the data is two or three years old. Outcomes may have
changed in the intervening time due to the impact of policy changes or
for other reasons. We provide references to the original sources of all
information used.
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