Chapter 3
Measuring social exclusion for the ESS core module
Suggestions from
Joachim Vogel
Umeå University
秘果剧情介绍Dept. of Sociology
Sweden
Jeroen Boelhouwer
Social Cultural Planning Office鱼头炖豆腐怎么做
The Hague
Ruut Veenhoven
University of Utrecht
Contents
挂职鉴定3.1 Preface (84)
3.2 Suggestions for indicators to be included (85)
3.2.1 Suggestions of indicators by Jeroen Boelhouwer (85)
3.2.2 Suggestions of indicators by Joachim Vogel (93)
3.2.3 Suggestions of indicators by Ruuth Veenhoevn (104)
3.3 Evaluation and improvement of the questions (105)
k2路由器
3.3.1 Comment on measurment of social exclusion by the CCT (105)
3.3.2 Central Co-ordinating Team lection of items for pilot (109)
3.3.3 Post-pilot discussions (114)
3.4 Final lection of items for Round 1 (117)
3.1 Preface
There is an inten discussion on the role and feasibility of indexes in social indicator rearch, social reporting, and the related quality of life rearch. A new status report on indexes in QOL rearch is in the pipeline, prepared by ISQOLS (Hagerty et al 2002). This report is bad on contributions from a ries of rearchers, currently preparing their instruments to allow index constructions.
The attraction of indices is that they reduce the number of variables to be taken into account in further analys and to characterize the situation in an area. For example the Dutch Social cultural center was always using one single index to characterize the living condition of people. Jeroen Boelhouwer will prent this vision in ction 3.1.
However, as we said above, not all people agree with this idea. For example Joachim Vogel of Statistics Sweden is strongly against this approach. He prents for this point of view the following arguments.
In the Nordic tradition QOL rearch is cloly linked to social planning of the welfare state. This applies in particular to Statistics Sweden, which has to give priority to objective facts which fit in econometric and other models, and relate directly to goals in social and economic planning of transfers and rvices, labour market policy, housing planning, training etc. On the other hand, the ULF survey system, its richness of routine data collected since decades, offers a unique environment for experiments. However, there have been no rious attempts at constructing indexes, neither by the rearch community nor at Statistics Sweden.
There is no obvious theoretical foundation for such constructs, which could be bad on connsus, neither among rearchers, nor in society at large. Simple additive indexes without theory will not contribute to our understanding, but obscure reality. In short, neither the administration nor the general public will be interested in esoteric indexes without clear relation to reality.
Given the strength of his arguments Vogel was asked to provide suggestions for indicators of exclusion for the ESS.
There is also a debate about the u of objective and subjective measures of quality of living conditions and exclusion. In order to be able to cover also the subjective component of quality of life
Ruut Veenhoven as been asked to provide us with the most commonly ud subjective indicators for quality of life.
First the suggestions of the three experts will be prented. Next we will prent the arguments of the CCT for their choice of questions for the ESS.
3.2 Suggestions for indicators to be included
3.2.1 Suggestions of indicators by Jeroen Boelhouwer
中国合伙人台词In every SCP report you will find a mixture of attention drawn to domains of living conditions and attention for special categories of the population. For example: a report on housing conditions deals not only with general housing conditions, but also with housing of the youth, the elderly or poor people. In reports on the youth, besides describing the general state of the youth attention is paid to their housing conditions, education, income, et cetera. As said: most of the SCP publications have a ‘best resources’ ba. Becau of the different data resources being ud, the connection between the aspects most of the times cannot be made. As an integrative tool the SCP developed in 1974 an overall monitoring instrument: the living conditions index (LCI), bad on the survey on living conditions. The aims assigned to the study on living conditions in 1974 were fivefold:
1.The first aim was to depict the living conditions as a single entity;
In the venties integrated information was needed for bridging the opposite pod notions of 'well-being' and 'deprivation'. Today again there is a sharp focus on deprived groups in the Netherlands. At the same time, the approach to such problems is no longer in terms of a one-dimensional solution. Improving the quality of life is not only carried out through offering jobs, but via improving livability and social participation as well.
2.To have the possibility to tell if things are getting wor or better, we have to
evaluate this index in terms of positive and negative;
3.To do so, we don’t want to publici absolute figures each year. An important aim is
to identify trends, so we want to create a time ries for obrving changes;
4.To get some clues on the cau of changes in the living conditions it can be a great八仙过海故事
help to e changes in the parate indicators. So the fourth aim t to the study was not only to monitor living conditions as a single entity, but to monitor developments in the parate indicators over time as well;
5.However, in order to explain changes over time we not only take into account
changes in the parate indicators, we also u other information. We examine for example to what extend age, income, education and labour influence the living conditions. The last aim was therefore to situate the description of social and cultural conditions in a broader context of background information.
后浪The next step in developing the LCI was to determine which areas were to be included in the umbrella notion of living conditions. An important starting-point was that a main task of the SCP is to make policy recommendations to the government. For that reason, clusters were lected that were (more or less) capable of being influenced by government policy. The actual indicators, as well as the variables comprising the indicators, were then defined within each cluster. Until 1993 the term ud was 'the index on well-being', a term often associated with subjective feelings or with happiness. Since the index was designed to create an objectified picture, the SCP now prefers the term ‘living conditions index’.
老人与海概括Becau no all-encompassing theory was available for making a lection, the SCP’s decision in 1974 was to choo indicators and variables which can be presumed in their totality to say somethin
g about a person’s current living conditions, or state of well-being. In so doing, the SCP adopted a position bad more on pragmatics than on principle, keeping in view its primary objective of depicting living conditions as a comprehensive whole. We did, however, draw from the experiences of others, in particular the 1973 OECD list of indicators. A number of requirements were t for the indicators:
1.They were to be focusd on ‘output’. The number of dwellings actually built was
less important for the LCI than peoples housing conditions, and the number of doctors was not as important as the state of health of individuals.
2.The indicators were to be general in nature. The indicators have to be applicable to the
entire population rather than to specific groups. So there are, for example, no indicators about working conditions, as the unemployed obviously don't enjoy them.
3.They were to measure objectified characteristics of living conditions. Rather than
speak of ‘objective indicators’, we u the term ‘objectified’ -as the choice of indicators, and the implicit assumption of what is good and what is not, is at least normative. Anyhow, the chon indicat
ors are not subjective nor satisfactions. This in order to avoid personal preferences and individual interpretations of concepts and, more important, becau of our purpo, which is to be relevant for policymakers.
4.It was to be clear, at least implicitly, whether they had a positive or a negative effect on
well-being. Otherwi we wouldn’t be able to tell whether the living conditions as a whole is changing, whether it is getting better or wor.
5.They also had to be measured at an individual level. This makes it possible not only to
monitor developments at the national level, but to break down living conditions for different groups in society as well.
Taken together, we believe the indicators provide an objectified description of individual living conditions. The LCI is nowadays compod of indicators from eight areas, as can been en in table 1. This choice of clusters and indicators is, however, by no means final, and has changed over the years. I’ll come to this later on.
Relevance of the LCI for policy(makers)
What could be the relevance of the Living Conditions Index for policy and policymakers? Let’s start by recalling that the main aim of the LCI is to monitor the social and cultural developments in the Netherlands: is it getting better, or is it getting wor? In this way the LCI is a descriptive instrument to identify trends in the living conditions. Moreover, the LCI can help us keeping track of deprived groups in society. If it goes better in the Netherlands, are there any groups lagging behind, and if so: which groups? This is related to an important goal of policy in the Netherlands: as many people as possible sh
