Social Indicators of Equality for Minorities and Women - University of ...

group of "black and other," with the "other"consisting of other races rather than other minoritygroups. For persons of Spanish origin or descent, theinformation is reported quarterly but is not separatedfor Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, or others.Since the samples lack adequate minority representation,studies of minority conditions generallyare limited to analysis based on information from thedecennial census. It is very difficult to keep track ofimportant trends when the information is collectedand reported only once in a decade. Furthermore,the censuses have not included many kinds ofinformation vital to the development of an adequatesystem of social indicators for minorities and women.For example, this report was limited in the indicatorsdeveloped because the decennial censuses did notcollect information on such matters as housingquality, literacy, and the number of "discouragedworkers."The Identification of Minorities. An essentialelement in establishing an adequate social indicatorsystem for women and minorities is the existence ofcomparable statistical information over time. It is notenough, however, for the indicators to be consistentlycalculated. It also is vital for the minority groups tobe appropriately defined and identified at the time ofdata collection and for that identification to beuniform from one time to the next.In many questionnaires and vital records there isno identification of the minorities discussed in thisreport. Inadequate identification of Hispanics, forexample, is common in birth and death records, andraces other than whites and blacks are not identifiedin the Annual Housing Survey. These types ofdeficiencies make impossible the subsequent minority-majoritycomparisons essential to the measurementof equality. Even when information is collectedon minority groups, it may not be useful for purposesof comparisons over time and with other studiesbecause minority group identification was notuniform. The composition of various minority groupsdiffers depending on whether the identification isbased on birthplace, nationality, race, ethnicity,national origin or descent, language, etc. Thisproblem is most complex and serious for theHispanic groups, but it applies to all minority groupsin varying degrees.As the types of hindrances discussed above areremoved from Federal statistical policies, progresscan be made in developing an adequate system ofsocial indicators for women and minority men. m&recent developments provide some encourage^piStarting in 1985, for example, there will be a£acdecade census that, properly designed and execmedshould allow for more frequent analyses o|^lconditions of minorities and women. 4^Although current social indicator .analysis^}conditions of equality is limited by the panitems included in the census and large sample Jquestionnaires (such as the 1976 Survey of Iiand Education), the existing raw data permituseful statistical analysis. Meaningful measurecan be constructed on the basis of existing da 1measure the well-being of women and minorityfPbncompared to majority males, in many iifacets of life. Using fairly simple procedures?report has developed a number of such "indicators of equality."These indicators should provide signals tNation that inequalities or problems exist amintended remediation has not occurred. Whindicator signals that conditions are unsatisfactchain of events should be triggered to addreproblem area and bring the conditions to asatisfactory state. Continued measurements SJbe used to gauge the ongoing effects of such att