Big Data and Social Indicators: Actual Trends and New Perspectives

Big Data are a top subject in international research articles and a vast debate is taking place on their actual capability of being used to complement or even substitute official statistics surveys and social indicators in particular. In this paper we analyse the metadata of the Scopus database of academic articles on Big Data and we show that most of the existing and intensively growing literature is focused on software and computational issues whilst articles that are specifically focused on statistical issues and on the procedures to build social indicators from Big Data are a much smaller share of this vast production. Nevertheless the works that focus on these topics show promising results because in developed countries Big Data seem to be a good information base to create reliable proxies of social indicators, whereas in developing countries their use (for instance using satellite images) may be a viable alternative to traditional surveys. However, Big Data based social indicators deeply suffer of a number of open issues that affect their actual use: they do not correspond to any sampling scheme and they are often representative of particular segments of the population; they generally are private process-produced data whose access by national statistical offices is rarely possible although the intrinsic value of the information contained in Big Data has a social importance that should be shared with the whole community; Big Data lack the socio-economic background on which social indicators have been founded and their help to policy makers in their decision process is a fully open point. Therefore Big Data may be a big opportunity for the definition of traditional or new social indicators but their statistical reliability should be further investigated and their availability and use should be internationally coordinated.     

National approaches to developing social indicators

The basis for selecting social indicators in ten national publications released to date are primarily measures of welfare and measures reflecting public policy and social concerns. The orientation of the volumes from the U.S., France, Canada, Norway, Philippines, Malaysia, Great Britain are discussed. The selection of time series that reflect social processes is proposed and an orientation presented around the concepts of the vital processes, socialization and participation, mobility and stratification, maintaining security, and control and coordination by which social order is attained. A bibliography identifies the national reports known to the author.     

National and international approaches in social reporting

National and international approaches in social reporting in western Europe are described. The paper starts with the outline of current activities in international organizations. The competing national approaches are discussed. Further topics are the sources and products of social reporting; the plurality of actors in social reporting, and different ways of its institutionalization. The only incomplete diffusion of social reporting in Western Europe is described and some hypotheses are offered for an explanation. The conclusion points that there will be a new surge of social reporting in Europe in the 1990s. As a basis for its argumentation the paper presents rich tables on social surveys and a bibliography on social reporting by actor.This paper was presented at the workshop onSocial Statistics and Social Reporting in and for Europe, Mannheim, Germany, November 28–29 1991, organized by theMannheim Centre for European Social Research (MZES) and theCentre for Survey Research and Methodology (ZUMA), Mannheim.     

ESCAP migration study gathers momentum

A comparative study is being conducted in the ESCAP (Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific) region on the relationships of migration and urbanization to development. The 1st stage of the study will entail the preparation of country reports on the census analysis of migration, urbanization and development. The 2nd stage will involve preparation of a series of national migration surveys. The 3rd phase will involve assisting member governments to formulate a comprehensive population redistribution policy as part of their national development planning. 1st-phase country reports have been completed in Sri Lanka, South Korea, the Philippines, and Indonesia. Migration in Sri Lanka has largely been rural-to-rural with little urbanization so far. The picture in South Korea has been the opposite, with rapid urbanization in the 1960s and 1970s; the government is hoping to divert some population to smaller cities away from Seoul. The pattern in the Philippines is 1 of urban primacy with the metropolis of Manila accounting for over 1/3 of the country's total population. Indonesia is characterized by a dense heartland in the Java-Bali regions. However, the rate of urbanization here has been slower. Migrants in all the countries studied are preponderantly young. The sex differential varies from country to country. The influence of migration on subsequent fertility is unknown.     

Measuring social indicators in opinion surveys: A method to improve accuracy on sensitive questions

Asking sensitive questions, without risking a terminated interview or response bias, is a major problem in deriving accurate social indicators based on public opinion surveys. This problem has become particularly acute as the topics that interest researchers have become more personal in nature. Mail and telephone surveys, and methods such as the randomized response technique, have all been used to try and overcome this problem, with varying degrees of success. In this paper, we describe an alternative approach using a sealed booklet. We report results from a question-format experiment that asked respondents the same sensitive questions in a sealed booklet, completed in the presence of the interviewer, and in a standard face-to-face interview. The survey used for the experiment was a personal interview survey of drug use based on a national population sample. The sealed booklet format was found to produce more accurate estimates of drug use compared to direct questions. In addition to assuring the respondent greater anonymity, the sealed booklet permits a wide range of questions to be asked and does not limit the analyses that can be conducted on the data.     

The Philippine social indicators project

The Social Indicators Project of the Development Academy of the Philippines (1974) aimed to formulate a measurement system capable of objectively depicting periodic changes in national development. It identified the following as basic Philippine social concerns: (1) Health and Nutrition, (2) Learning, (3) Income and Consumption, (4) Employment, (5) Non-human Productive Resources, (6) Housing, Utilities, and the Environment, (7) Public Safety and Justice, (8) Political Values, and (9) Social Mobility. This list is unique in considering political welfare. A multi-disciplinary research team selected 30 major indicators pertinent to these concerns. Although the majority are already encompassed by the Philippine statistical system, certain new indicators were proposed, including disability due to illness, human capital created by schooling, net beneficial product, families below a food threshold, an index of housing adequacy, an air pollution index for Greater Manila, an index of perceived public safety, indices of political mobility and efficacy, and indices of occupational mobility and perceived social mobility. A survey of 1000 households was used to demonstrate the feasibility of gathering needed new primary data, particularly those attitudinal in nature. An analysis of time series showed that certain aspects of Philippine welfare have been notably improving, but that others have been worsening; the direction of national progress can only be ascertained by admitting value-judgments on the relative importance of the several components of welfare.     

Social aspects of economic readjustment in Hungary: A consideration of the role of social-economic indicators

Social Accounting Matrices have been used as a means of analysing national economic structure but it is argued in this paper that their usefulness could be enhanced if they were designed to include compatible sets of socio-economic indicators which might reflect physical stocks and flows rather than strictly monetary flows. This paper considers ways in which this might be accomplished, giving particular consideration to optional approaches based on economic, social and quality of life indicators. Three approaches to providing supplementary information to the conventional Social Accounting Matrix model are considered. These include the incorporation of indicators of characteristics of households, the disaggregation of data to a geographical base and use of indicators of social attitudes and expectations. Although work continues on the first two of these suggestions, certain results concerning the third are presented. A consideration is given to the use of available secondary data to meet the needs identified. It is shown, however, that such information fails to meet the objectives of the study for various reasons. It is concluded that the necessary data can only be collected by surveys. Preliminary results of a survey carried out in Hungary beginning in May 1991 by Gallup/Hungary are presented. This information reflects attitudes of the population toward changes which are taking place and would seem to provide a means of estimating perceptions of changes in expected quality of life that result from the current efforts toward economic readjustment in Hungary.     

Indicators of Social Quality and Social Exclusion at National and Community Level

This paper explores the domains and indicators ofsocial inclusion and exclusion and their interactionat national and community level, within the context ofthe social quality construct and the notions of Demosand Ethnos.Social inclusion/exclusion is conceptualiseddynamically within the overarching construct of socialquality. Micro and macro aspects of social quality arediscussed along with the relationship betweenorganisations and institutions and communities, groupsand individuals. The relationship between these levelsis explored in relation to Delantys distinctionbetween Demos and Ethos. Drawing on the work ofMcMillan and Chevis, two domains of community areidentified – identification and participation.Relevant attributes and indicators are suggested foreach domain.Interactions between social inclusion and exclusion atnational and community level are then exemplified,ranging from inclusion to exclusion both communallyand nationally via intermediate stages of inclusion inone realm and exclusion in the other. Social policyimplications of the relationship between national andcommunity exclusion are drawn, both formacro/institution and organisational levels (inrelation to legislation and society-wide serviceprovisions) and micro and group and citizen level (inrelation to social work).     

Social indicators of basic needs: Quantitative data for human rights policy

This paper reports on the author's effort to improve the consistency and objectivity of the economic rights section of the annual Country Reports, prepared by the Department of State, to provide a basis for equitable implementation of this aspect of U.S. human rights policy. The purpose was to define relatively objectively the extent to which a country's basic human needs are filled, as a backdrop to a discussion of the country's policy effort. This complex and evolving area of foreign policy had few participants who were sophisticated about social policy or social data, and existing social indicators had many problems of reliability. The Universal Declaration on Human Rights and the International Covenant on Economic and Social Rights to which the U.S. is signatory, were taken as starting points, along with literature on basic needs in developing countries. Education, health, income and nutrition were selected as the highest priority rights for immediate action, policy issues were outlined for discussion, and a set of overview, background, and diagnostic social indicators were selected for inclusion in the reports. Principles for the selection of indicators included simplicity, ready availability across many nations, reliability, credibility, comprehensibility and correspondence to policy issues. Indicators, which are available through the World Bank, included life expectancy, literacy rates, infant mortality, school enrollment, population per physician, percentage of FAO daily nutritional requirement, percentage served by clean water. Cautions are raised that indicators should be used only in context of expert qualitative analysis of a country's situation because they are imperfect and limited measures. They should not be linked to policy too directly because the causal connection may be tenuous. The project is seen as a first phase in improving the information used in this policy area and giving more visibility to the issues.     

Impacts of behavioral intentions,social support,and accessibility on contraception: A cross-cultural study

Multivariate analysis of survey data from women at risk of pregnancy in three cultures (Venezuela, Kenya, and Philippines) are used to examine the relative impacts of socio-demographic and personal psychological determinants on contraceptive intentions and actions. The analyses show that the impacts of behavioral intentions on contraceptive actions vary significantly by cultures and socio-demographic strata. The consistency between contraceptive intentions and actionalso varied significantly by several social psychological factors which are discussed. The analyses revealed that within a given cultural and sociodemographic setting, contraceptive action is a function of the additive effects of these factors: specific behavioral intentions, social support, accessibility of services, and the action situation. The paper discusses implications for research and policy.Please send request for reprints to Snehendu Kar, School of Public Health, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90024.This is a revised version of a paper presented at the 89th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, held in Los Angeles, CA, August 24–28, 1981.This research was made possible through grants from the Office of Population and Humanitarian Affairs, Agency for International Development, Washington, D.C., and from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Paris. The authors extend special thanks to Dr. Ramon Gonzales-Cerrutti, codirector of the Field Trial project in Venezuala; to Dr. Gloria Feliciano, Dean, Institute of Mass Communication, University of the Philippines, codirector in the Philippines; and to Cynthia Dean and Joseph Mbindyo, who assumed major responsibilities for the field operations in Kenya. The Institute of Development Studies, University of Nairobi, provided administrative support for the project in Kenya. In Venezuela, the Association Venezolana de Planificacion Familiar supported the initial phases of the project, while the Ministerio de Sanidad Asistencia Social supported the later phases. These institutions deserve special recognition for their administrative support, without which these baseline surveys could not have been implemented.     

Happiness is not Enough: Cognitive Judgements as Indicators of National Wellbeing

The European Social Survey, on which this issue of the journal focuses, is a 30-nation multi-funded survey series measuring attitude change. Started in 2001, it is characterised by unusually high standards of sampling and data equivalence. Its data are made available on-line with equal access to all, and have already attracted over 20,000 users. Many papers, articles and books based on the ESS have already appeared. But none has yet employed the data—whether alone or with other sources—to derive indicators of citizens’ cognitive judgements of their society. A recent EC grant is enabling the authors to fill this gap, covering topics such as trust in national institutions, tolerance, social cohesion, social trust and fear of crime. The aim is to be able to monitor changes over time in the distance between what citizens believe their society ought to be in these respects and how they actually perceive it to be.

Whatever Happened to Social Indicators in Africa? Whatever Happened Indeed! A Developing World Perspective on the Kenneth C. Land and Alex C. Michalos Report on ‘Fifty Years After the Social Indicators Movement’

Africa is a latecomer to the Social Indicators Movement. The first social indicators for Third World countries were developed by outsiders and covered almost exclusively topics related to basic needs and development. In response to Kenneth Land’s and Alex Michalos’ historical assessment and their agenda for future ‘social indicators/quality of life/well-being’ research, the commentary traces how South Africa and sub-Saharan countries—with a little help from many friends who are pioneers in the movement—have succeeded in developing their own home-grown social indicators movement. Addressing some of the themes outlined in the agenda that Land and Michalos set for future research, the commentary discusses the importance of monitoring social change occurring in African society in a ‘post-industrialized and much more globalized, and digitized-computerized-roboticized’ era: How will new values and norms impact on the quality of life of future generations of African people?     

Static Numbers to Dynamic Statistics: Designing a Policy-Friendly Social Policy Indicator Framework

In line with the economic crisis and rapid socio-demographic changes, the interest in ??social?? and ??well-being?? indicators has been revived. Social indicator movements of the 1960s resulted in the establishment of social indicator statistical frameworks; that legacy has remained intact in many national governments and international organisations. With this background, this research examines whether existing social indicator frameworks are valid and effective enough to address increasingly complex social issues. The authors argue that, despite some improvements, current social indicators fail to provide an effective framework and tool for measuring the progress of social welfare and also for developing or reforming social policy to cope with newly emerging social problems. While proposing a new social indicator framework based on the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development??s pressure-state-response (PSR) model, the paper argues that the new framework should be more than displaying static numbers but should use dynamic statistics revealing causes and effects and shedding light on social and policy changes.     

Conceptualising and Measuring Social Cohesion in Africa: Towards a Perceptions-Based Index

Social cohesion is a key concept in development studies. Weak social cohesion is often related to slow economic growth and (violent) conflict. So far few attempts have been made to measure this complex concept in a systematic manner. This paper introduces an innovative method to measure national-level social cohesion based on survey data from 19 African countries. We distinguish three dimensions of social cohesion; i.e. the extent of perceived inequalities, the level of societal trust, and the strength of people’s adherence to their national identity. Importantly, our Social Cohesion Index (SCI) is based on individuals’ perceptions vis-à-vis these three different dimensions of social cohesion rather than certain macro-level ‘objective’ indicators such as GDP/capita or Gini-coefficients. We develop two social cohesion indices: a national average SCI and a Social Cohesion Index Variance-Adjusted (SCIVA); the latter one takes into account the level of variation across different ethnic groups within countries. The SCI and SCIVA are computed for and compared across nineteen African countries for the period 2005–2012 on the basis of Afrobarometer survey rounds 3, 4 and 5. We also investigate quantitatively the relationship between countries’ levels of social cohesion and the occurrence of a range of conflict events. As expected, we find that countries with low levels of social cohesion in a particular year according to our SCI are more likely to experience a range of different violent conflict events in the subsequent year.     

Measures of Social Isolation

Social isolation is a deprivation of social connectedness. It is a crucial aspect that continues to be named by people as a core impediment for achieving well-being and as a relevant factor for understanding poverty. However it is not routinely included in surveys that provide data on multidimensional poverty measurement. Although the challenge of measuring social connectedness is daunting, this paper argues that existing research in several fields provides solid ground for the construction of basic internationally comparable indicators that measure specific aspects of social isolation. In particular, this paper synthesises the relevant literature on the measurement of social isolation and related phenomena, and on the basis of this synthetic review, proposes a module of indicators to measure social connectedness that could be feasibly incorporated into an internationally comparable multi-topic household survey.     

A social change index-an objective means to discern and measure the relative current social condition of cities,towns, and their sub-communities

A social change index has been developed in response to a social planning need to have a means whereby the current social pathology of communities may be identified on an objective basis. The index is derived from a combination of social indicators which are reported by census tract by the State of Rhode Island on an annual basis. The index is particularly useful for the inter-decennial years because high mobility rates, particularly in central cities (up to 80% in some areas of these cities), cause census data to be unrepresentative in many instances for these years. In addition to serving as a means to identify social needs and problem areas, the index may be used for priority ranking of need for social program services, program monitoring, and program evaluation. The State of Rhode Island is expected to institute a Committee on Social Statistics among whose primary responsibilities will be to encourage state agencies to publish their social statistics by census tracts in their annual reports. It is presumed, consequently, that a larger number of current social indicators will be available to be included in the social change index and increase its accuracy.     

Tolerance Within Community: Does Social Capital Affect Tolerance?

Credit cooperatives are financial intermediaries that pay attention to social criteria. Thus, if such entities want to survive and thrive in the new international context, they cannot ignore their inefficiencies in both the financial and social dimensions of their activity. However, previous research on efficiency in credit cooperatives is very limited and only considers their financial activity. To date, no study has been published giving evidence through indicators on whether these banking institutions are socially efficient. This paper therefore constructs a social efficiency index of Spanish credit cooperatives during the period 2008–2014 and examines its main explanatory factors. After applying a two-stage Data Envelopment Analysis approach, the results from the first stage indicate that, on average, the social efficiency of Spanish credit cooperatives reaches an acceptable level of 66.42 %. Second-stage truncated regression reveals that entities with a greater proportion of branches in urban areas are socially less efficient, whereas both their size and the number of service points have a positive effect. Interestingly, social efficiency also varies significantly depending on the regional location of credit cooperatives in Spain. As a result, our findings enable these Social Economy financial institutions to both know their performance relative to their social activity and use this information to improve their competitiveness in the future.     

Social Indicators in Surveys of Urban Aboriginal Residents in Saskatoon

The Bridges and Foundations Project on Urban Aboriginal Housing, a Community-University Research Alliance (CURA) project financed primarily by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), has been operational in Saskatoon since early 2001. During these past 5 years over 50 specific research projects, community surveys, graduate theses, workshops, conferences, seminars and other meetings have been conducted under the auspices of the Bridges and Foundations Project as a whole. This paper first discusses the various social indicators employed in seven surveys, which probed deeply into the views of local Aboriginal residents of their quality of life, particularly their living conditions and affordable housing. The paper focuses less on the vast amount of data gathered from some 2,000 residents than on the relevance of social indicators used in these surveys—for example which were most or least informative, and which were of most or least interest and pertinence to the residents themselves. In the process it would seem pertinent to discern which of various research approaches seemed, in retrospect, to have been most appropriate, informative and beneficial. The paper then proceeds to place our experience in the Bridges and Foundations Project within a broader theoretical discussion of social indicator development; and concludes with a brief commentary on the linkages between theory and research and between academic and community-based research.     

Regional indicators in social planning

Social planning requires the application of indicators as instruments for the measuring of phenomena and processes, for monitoring, and for evaluation. The spatial polarization of socio-economic growth together with individual regional features lead to the emergence of considerable differentiations and disparities. Many of them are perceived in social consciousness as ineqities which require equalization, e.g. living conditions in the sphere of satisfaction of elementary social needs. In order to be effective, social planning must take account of, among other things, the hierarchy of centres and institutions for satisfying social needs, which most frequently amounts to 3 ranks of service (local, regional, national). Each region possesses its own central area (centre) and peripheral area (periphery). The differences between them amount to the emergence of changing socio-economic structures together with a changing dynamic in development and rate of economic growth. The gradation of social needs comprised in social planning corresponds to the hierarchy of service centres. Regional indicators serve the analysis of inter-regional disparities as related to the external “model system”, and are most frequently national means, as well as of intraregional disparities as related to the internal “model system”, which are represented by means of separate regions. The selection of an appropriate set of regional indicators requires a lot of attention. The paper points up the danger of the application of inappropriate regional indicators, which cause distortions in the spatial picture of differentiations.     

The Development of the Good Relations Measurement Framework in Britain: A Template for Experiential Social Measurement

This article explores the development of the Good Relations Measurement Framework (GRMF), the first attempt in Britain to create a framework designed to measure how people experience their lives, specifically in relation to their interactions with each other. It provides a reference point for others seeking to construct social indicator measurement frameworks which capture the experiential in the social policy field. In a wider sense, it provides a case study of the use of social indicators within the policy process in the modern polity. The overall objective of the GRMF is to measure the state of Good Relations in Britain. Seven key areas emerged as being crucial for the development of measurement frameworks during the construction of the GRMF. Firstly, a decision has to be taken about the extent to which social measurement frameworks are confined to measurement only or are to have a normative element. Secondly, a working definition of the subject area is needed early in the process. Thirdly, an element of consultation with the public is important. A fourth issue relates to the practical method of construction through the use of ‘long lists’ of potential indicators, and finding a balance between an ‘ideal’ list of potential indicators emerging from public consultation and a second list of existing indicators drawn from existing surveys. A fifth issue relates to the availability of social indicator data at an appropriate geographical level. A sixth issue is that social indicators drawn from different surveys are not always comparable. A final factor is that while quantitative indicators are useful as a tool of social measurement, qualitative research adds a further dimension which is especially important in particular circumstances.