Abstract
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.
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Notes
Social policy refers to “the principles and practice of state activities—including state policy for private or voluntary action—relating to redistribution in pursuit of, or leading to, welfare outcomes.” (Baldock et al. 2007:29).
http://www.economist.com/media/pdf/quality_of_life.pdf (Accessed on 25 October 2010).
http://worlddatabaseofhappiness.eur.nl/ (Accessed on 25 October 2010).
One example Noll provides in his research is the labour market as life domain, improvement of objective living conditions as goal dimension, labour market opportunities and risks as measurement dimension, level of unemployment as sub-dimension, and finally rate of total unemployment as indicator (Noll 2002:72–7).
The OECD (2009:52) explains that “human activities exert pressures on the environment, which affect natural resources and environmental conditions (state), and which prompt society to respond to these changes through various policies (societal response)”. The NEF (2009:48) also offers the cause-effect model, but it does not have a detailed explanation.
http://ec.europa.eu/employment_social/spsi/common_indicators_en.htm (Accessed on 23 April 2010).
Interview with staff members at Social Policy Division, OECD in Paris, France (25 June 2010).
As more young people join the university educational system, the real working age has been delayed. For example, the college enrolment rate in the United States is more than 70% and more than 80% in Korea. http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/28/college-enrollment-rate-at-record-high/ (Accessed on 26 October 2010), http://economy.hankooki.com/lpage/society/200809/e2008090317141893820.htm (Accessed on 26 October 2010). However, age categorisation can be flexible depending on the national context.
Cohen (1968) argues that the ‘interpretation’ issue is more important in social indicators than in economic indicators and one of the important roles of statisticians is to interpret numbers.
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Ahn, SH., Choi, Y.J. & Kim, YM. Static Numbers to Dynamic Statistics: Designing a Policy-Friendly Social Policy Indicator Framework. Soc Indic Res 108, 387–400 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-011-9875-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-011-9875-9