Home

UK: 'Statistical gender bending'

Submitted by anthony on Sat, 2009-08-08 20:01.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Harriet Harman's office is in trouble with the statistics watchdog again.

After ticking off the equality minister in June for using a figure which "risks giving a misleading quantification of the gender pay gap", the UK Statistics Authority is more than a little perturbed that a quango based in her office - the Women and Work Commission - went ahead and published the figure again just a few weeks later. The number was quoted across the British media - including the BBC.

The figure in question is 22.6 - the percentage that Ms Harman's department likes to suggest is the difference between the earnings of men and women. But the head of the UK Statistics Authority, Sir Michael Scholar, told the Government Equalities Office on 11 June that the figure should not be used, because to do so "may undermine public trust in official statistics".

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.

Wuss

Submitted by BinaryShadow on Sun, 2009-08-09 07:27.

"may undermine public trust in official statistics"

If he had any courage, he's say this: Using the statistics would be exposing you as a liar and a hypocrite and you should be forced to publicly apologize for your actions before being thrown out of office.

»

harriet

Submitted by saracen395 on Sun, 2009-08-09 22:13.

The trouble is ,of course is that the figure has not been retracted,is believed by a large part of the british public and a similar figure is believed by an american public.In spite of all protestations and objections the whole media has swallowed this figure,whether it has done so deliberately or not is of no concern,Harriet still wins.Can anyone see prime time being given to Scholar to refute the figure,-no,neither can I.If Harriet becomes PM
thee will be no men in the cabinet,it's about time some mp's took their blinkers off.

»