Transcript Equality and Diversity Across the Board in Northern Ireland

Equality and Diversity Across the
Board in Northern Ireland –
Methodological Considerations
Jim Jamison
Richard Buchanan
Roy Carr-Hill
Paul Dixon
Aims of Research
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Literature review on indicators of equality and diversity with a
particular focus on their relevance and applicability in Northern
Ireland.
Limited consultation with key “stakeholders” representative of
groups within the nine categories identified under Section 75 of the
N Ireland Act (1998).
To consider the relative strengths and weaknesses of approaches
that use univariate and multivariate methods to develop measures of
equality and diversity; to comment on the technical and socioeconomic interpretations of the indicators suggested in the
consultation; to identify gaps; and to make recommendations about
future indicator development and monitoring.
Research commissioned by OFMDFM as part of the N Ireland Government Departments’
Equality and Social Need Research and Information Strategy
Social Inequalities
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All societies exhibit inequality
A degree of inequality is indispensable to material
progress
What types of inequality should the state concern
itself with trying to ameliorate?
Equality legislation concentrates on a small number
of categories such as gender and age and a very
small subset of ‘welfare’ measures’ such as
employment or access to services
Legislation tends to be framed in terms of equality of
opportunity rather than process or outcome
Domains of Equality
The measurement of human welfare or wellbeing needs to take account of the full
range of “domains” of well-being (health,
adequate material wealth, security etc).
Any set of indicators that fails to reflect the
variety of components of well-being may
present an incomplete and misleading
picture. For example, it is at least arguable
that men and women tend to differ in their
valuation of domains.
Equality of Opportunity
Equality of opportunity, rather than outcome, is the avowed aim of
most Western societies.
Invariably more difficult to measure than outcome; but
 Inequalities in outcomes are often, although importantly not
always, pointers to inequalities in opportunities and/or process
 Inequality in outcome may be attributable to individual choice
and/or differences in opportunity or process
 Assumption that the influence of the latter is negligible likely to be
closer to the truth in some equality categories than others
The available data largely reflect equality of process or outcome
rather than opportunity
Statistical Considerations
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Univariate approaches to monitoring equality may
give misleading results
Monitoring equality of process or opportunity often
involves examining “flows” such as from
unemployment to employment
Statistical methods such as log-linear modelling may
be required
Monitoring utilisation of health and other public
services across equality groups has to take account
of service need (and possibly supply) as well as
uptake and may require complex statistical methods
Sets of Indicators (1)
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Relatively small number of measures
Simple and easily understood
Readily comparable across settings and over
time; but
Beware over-simplification!
Sets of Indicators (2)
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A set of indicators that fails to reflect the variety of
components of well-being may present an
incomplete and misleading picture
Conversely, there is a danger in focusing too much
on any one inequality dimension as this will imply
causality where none is involved
Most sets of indicators proposed in the literature at a
high level. Although there would be value in
compiling many of these routinely (e.g. to study
trends over time) they are nearly all outcome based
and do not go directly to equality of opportunity or
process.
Data Problems
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Major difficulties in monitoring equality and
diversity in certain equality categories,
particularly political opinion and sexual
orientation because of the difficulty of
obtaining accurate data
Problems with household surveys because of
the difficulty of substantiating self-report data
Consultation - Purpose
“To establish in a systematic way the main areas of
concern to interest groups in each of the Section 75
categories about inequality in opportunity. In
particular, we wanted to explore:
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what information might be useful in highlighting such
concerns to policy makers; and
what information might be useful in demonstrating
the extent to which inequalities were or were not
diminishing.”
With whom did we consult? (1)
Larger umbrella groups and political parties:
 Carers Northern Ireland
 Parents Advice Centre
 CoSO
 NICVA
 NICEM
 NICTU
 Age Concern
 DUP
 Sinn Fein
 UUP
 SDLP
With whom did we consult?(2)
Religious representatives and some smaller,
more specialist organisations:
 Father Troy, Holy Cross Church, Belfast.
 Dr Watts, Presbyterian Church in Ireland
 The Men’s Project
 Youthlink
 South Tyrone Empowerment Programme
 Contact a Family
 Centre for Social Research, QUB
Key Policy Areas
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Labour Market
Education
Crime and Justice
Health and Social care
Social Security
Family and Household Structure
Culture/Social Capital
Income/Wealth
Housing
Transport
Measures of Quality of Environment
Some General Issues (1)
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Persons of different religious belief/opinion –
Difficult to distinguish between concerns that could
be a product of political opinion from those that
arose because of political belief.
Men and women – Much greater emphasis on
women’s equality issues rather than men’s. Many of
the former relate to the traditional position of women
as carers.
Persons of different marital status – How do we
establish representative views?
Persons with dependents – A wide definition of
dependents which included carers as well as people
with children.
Some General Issues (2)
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Persons of different racial groups – Issues arising
from the “new” ethnic minorities, particularly in rural
areas.
Persons of different sexual orientation – Scepticism,
based on experience, about Government’s commitment
to address issues relating to the rights of lesbian, gay
and bisexual people.
Persons with a disability – Need for more qualitative
data on attitudes of the general population towards the
issue of disability and on the attitudes and experiences
of people themselves.
Persons of different ages – Primary focus on
inequalities and disadvantage suffered by older people.
Outcomes of Consultation
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People generally welcomed the opportunity to help inform
thinking in what they regarded as a crucially important matter
(the development of meaningful indicators of equality and
diversity).
There were, however, concerns about the restricted nature of the
consultation.
Each suggested a menu of areas to be monitored in relation to
the key policy areas, totalling over 200
Not surprisingly, labour market issues attracted most
suggestions.
Our report will reflect what was suggested, rather than what we
necessarily believe is useful or feasible.
Emerging Conclusions
Measuring and interpreting differences in a range of policy
outcomes between groups of individuals along nine dimensions
is considerably more complex than the drafters of the legislation
appear to have appreciated. This is because:
 There is considerable overlap across the Section 75 dimensions
in their impact
 Differences between groups may be wholly or partly attributable
to differences in the makeup of the groups
 Individual-level data derived from household surveys are usually
highly correlated
 Making reliable inferences about whether observed inequalities
constitute inequity usually involves the use of statistical methods
such as multivariate analysis, multi-level modelling and/or loglinear analysis
 However such techniques often have fatal limitations because of
lack of data and intractable problems of interpretation.