Statistics Canada has been tone-deaf in its push for the financial data of Canadians from banks, but that data is essential to forming good public policy.
Official statistics help to shape a population’s sense of itself.
Izumo Taisha/Flickr
Digital technologies put an abundance of data at our fingertips, but we must ensure questions of what should, and should not, be measured are answered before we use them in official statistics.
In 2016, nearly 10 percent of American kids were living in three-generation households, like this one in Detroit, Michigan.
AP Photo/Paul Sancya
Over the past 20 years, the number of American households that have grandparents, their kids and their grandkids living under the same roof has nearly doubled.
Senator Pauline Hanson says Australia’s immigration policy has led to “culturally separate communities” in Australian cities.
AAP/Mick Tsikas
Senator Pauline Hanson raised concerns about immigration and social cohesion, saying ‘more than a million people’ in Australia ‘cannot speak English well or at all’. Let’s look at the numbers.
Critics worry a citizenship question will dissuade people from answering census takers in 2020.
U.S. Census Bureau
Increasing usage of big data by statistical agencies and other organisations may reduce the ability of populations to have a say in how they are governed.
Hurricane Maria’s destruction likely have led to thousands more deaths than originally estimated.
Ramon Espinosa/AP
Official reports state that just 64 people died in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. The latest estimates put the real number at 4,645. How did the count go so wrong?
Middle-class houses in the US have grown ever larger. The average single-family home is almost twice the size of a home in the 1960s. It’s time to consider the downsides of sizing up.
A focus on collaboration among African universities and research institutions is crucial in developing national policies that meet the principles of open data while keeping it safe from exploitation.
Métis Family and a Red River Cart, 1883.
(State Historical Society of North Dakota, A4365)
New census data sheds light on the country’s Indigenous population. In Eastern Canada, the rise in people claiming to be “Métis” is a controversial case of “settler self-indigenization.”
New census data gives insight into Canada’s immigrant population, including how English language proficiency can impact wages. Here, a group of new Canadians take part in a citizenship ceremony in Ottawa in September.
(THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick)
New census data provides a chance to understand why immigrants earn lower wages than Canadians who have been here for many generations. Whether immigrants speak English at home may be a clue.
Journalist Mehdi Hasan responds to a question from a Q&A audience member.
Q&A
Do Muslim couples in Australia have ‘on average 4.5 children’ while other couples have ‘1.5 children’? Could Australia have a ‘Muslim majority’ in ‘a couple’ of generations? Let’s check the evidence.
Australia’s Indigenous population is growing – rapidly.
AAP/Dan Peled
The census mostly delivered a good news story on Indigenous Australian outcomes, but it is unclear to what extent this correlates to improved lives for Indigenous families.
Much of the change in partnering in Australia has been in response to changing legal and social norms.
AAP/Alan Porritt
Edith Gray, Australian National University and Ann Evans, Australian National University
There has been a decrease in the proportion of Australians who are married, and an increase in co-habitation of both heterosexual and same-sex relationships.
The 2016 Census showed major changes in the ranking order of religious groups in Australia.
AAP/Tracey Nearmy
The changing pattern of the diversity of religious identities is one indicator of a society’s degree of multicultural composition. On this measure, Australia is among the most diverse.
The ABS estimates that as of December 2016, the Australian population was around 24.4 million.
AAP/Alan Porritt