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An introduction to a set of deep dive articles an important issue....When we tell people that we work at the intersection of statistics and human rights, the reaction is often surprise. Everyone knows that lawyers and journalists think about human rights problems … but statisticians? Yet, documenting and proving human rights abuses frequently involves the need for quantification. In the case of war crimes and genocide, guilt or innocence can hinge on questions of whether violence was systematic and widespread or one group was targeted at a differential rate compared to others. Similar issues can arise in assessing violations of civil, social, and economic rights. Sometimes the questions can be answered through simple tabulations, but often, more-complex methods of data collection and analysis are required.

Citizen-generated data is especially important for women's rights issues. In many countries the lack of women in positions of institutional power, combined with slow, bureaucratic systems and a lack of prioritisation of women's rights issues means data isn't gathered on relevant topics, let alone appropriately responded to by the state. Even when data is gathered by institutions, societal pressures may mean it remains inadequate. In the case of gender-based violence, for instance, women often suffer in silence, worrying nobody will believe them or that they will be blamed. Providing a way for women to contribute data anonymously or, if they so choose, with their own details, can be key to documenting violence and understanding the scale of a problem, and thus deciding upon appropriate responses.

From climate change to armed conflict, our world is struggling with urgent global issues. But disagreements about how to solve them can spiral out of control. The only way to resolve intractable conflicts is to overcome desire to talk to allies more often than opponents. Here, a social psychologist, two ecologists and a cartoonist explain the toolbox of communication we need to resolve difficult issues.

Using comedy/performance to make a point about statistics regarding a social/health issue.

Using comedy/performance to make a point about statistics regarding a social/health issue.

There is a lot of discussion recently about proposed changes to NSW Selective High Schools. This contentious issue may be something to consider for AT4. For example, see the articles in the Sydney Morning Herald such as this one:

Interesting discussion of a contentious issue related to the idea of a 'basic income' (but here, in a development context). Martin Ravallion (former Chief Economist of the World Bank, now at CGD) published a useful paper this week asking exactly this question. As he says, there's no simple answer - which is why the question is so interesting. Both 'the right to work' and 'the right to income' aim to secure a more fundamental right: freedom from poverty. Workfare has a long history, notably in India, where the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) guarantees (in theory) up to 100 days work per year, paid at a minimum wage, to anyone who requests it. Cash transfers (often with conditions) have expanded enormously in recent years, while the hot topic of Universal Basic Income (UBI) has advocates across the political spectrum. Which of these approaches is most cost-effective? Ravallion sets out the arguments clearly.

Women continue to earn less than men, for a variety of reasons. Discrimination is one, research shows. Women are also likelier than men to work in lower-paying jobs like those in public service, caregiving and the nonprofit sector - and to take time off for children. Employers often base a starting salary on someone's previous one, so at each job, the gender pay gap continues, and it becomes seemingly impossible for women to catch up. Salary history bans are too new for researchers to have studied their effects extensively. But other research has found that people are overly influenced by an opening bid, something social scientists call anchoring bias. This means that if employers learn an applicant's previous salary and it's lower or higher than they were planning to offer, it's likely to influence their offer.

The proposal to drug test welfare recipients keeps on bouncing back. The most recent attempt, announced last week, is now the third proposal since 2017. But the tenacity with which the government is pursuing this agenda reflects, not necessarily a fixed policy position, but rather a moral stance. And this moral stance conflicts with that of the proposals' critics. Are we doomed to countless repeats of the same policy proposal? Or, as the Australian Social Policy Conference heard in Sydney this week, can we use philosophical arguments to help break the deadlock?

On the importance of having data, in order to understand and tackle an issue... The most recent U.S. estimate...concluded approximately 513,000 women and girls at risk of genital mutilation...But that number should be taken with a big grain of salt...the data doesn't account for immigrants from countries where female genital cutting isn't studied or widely practiced...."You also can't assume that people who come to the U.S. are a representative sample of their country of origin," Clark said. That's especially problematic for estimating rates of female genital cutting, since it's not practiced uniformly within countries. It's also possible, he said, that some immigrants abandon the procedure as they assimilate....some advocates point out that although the estimates focus on immigrants, ...female genital cutting isn't new to the U.S. Female circumcision was performed as a treatment for masturbation by American physicians as recently as the mid-20th century...

A complex look at an important issue and what data can tell us about it, and how missing data complicates the picture.

Really good video illustrating how (a) gathering data, and (b) understanding the shape of that data can give us insight onto real world issues, and help us to target approaches to tackling them "Britain has carried out one of the biggest data-gathering exercises on the gender pay gap, exposing large disparities between the average pay given to men and women in some of the country's best-known companies. We dispel some of the myths around the gap, and explain what it really means and why it matters"

Lots of quantitative information in this video about the impact of sugar on health in the US. Using comedy/performance to make a point about statistics regarding a social/health issue.

John Oliver explores America's wage gap between men and women and proposes a possible solution. Note: Solution proposed is 100% sarcastic. Think about the arguments being made and how they shift - e.g. the claim that 4% is "basically no wage gap" as a way to indicate a gap isn't in fact a problem. Using comedy/performance to make a point about statistics regarding a social issue

Exhorted by President Trump, federal administrators and many Republican state officials are drafting rules requiring people to work in exchange for Medicaid, housing aid and food assistance. But what happens when the poor live where work is hard to find? In Michigan, the state's Senate has passed a proposal that would exempt Medicaid recipients from a work requirement partly on the basis of geography - if they live in a county where unemployment exceeds 8.5 percent. Michigan's approach, critics point out, would mean that poor, mostly white rural counties are exempted, but not the predominantly black, economically troubled cities of Detroit and Flint.

Some great quotes in this piece! The language of politics warps our democracy again and again, as in this tax calculation. The media must unpack statistics Last week, the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Health Foundation published a report on funding for health and social care. One figure from the report was repeated across the headlines. For the NHS to stay afloat, it would require "£2,000 in tax from every household". Shocking stuff!If you're sitting at a bar with a group of friends and Bill Gates walks in, the average wealth of everyone in the room makes you all millionaires. But if you try to buy the most expensive bottle of champagne in the place, your debit card will still be declined. The issue to be addressed, and one to which there is no fully correct answer, is how we can put numbers into a context that enables people to make informed choices. Big numbers are hard to conceptualise - most of us have no intuitive understanding of what £56bn even looks like.

Nice discussion of the data around contraception choices. Shortly after Donald Trump was elected president I started noticing an interesting trend on my social media newsfeeds. And no, I'm not talking about the near-constant bickering of people with differing political opinions. I started seeing post after post from friends publicly asking one another about their experiences with different forms of birth control. The motivation for these kinds of conversations centered around the pending rollback of copay-free contraception, but have since been re-kindled every time reproductive rights come up in the political arena. And it's not just talk. Many of these conversations centered around the use of long-term contraceptives like intra-uterine devices or IUDs which can protect against pregnancy for 3 - 12 years. In the months immediately following the 2016 election, AthenaHealth reported a 19% increase in IUD-related doctor's visits and Planned Parenthood reported a 900% increase in patients seeking IUDs. Cait, 27, recently switched to a copper IUD, and said that she made the switch due to convenience and "because now in light of our current administration I'd like to have something that will continue to work and be affordable even if I end up without health insurance."

When it comes to inequality, a growing body of evidence shows that people across countries underestimate the size of the gap between the rich and poor, including their wages. This can undermine support for policies to tackle inequality and even lead to apathy that consolidates the gap. But how exactly are existing perceptions of inequality measured by social scientists?

An excellent visual data story describing the gender pay gap (in America) and debunking the claim that there is no real difference in the amount men and women get paid. The pay gap varies depending on the occupation, working hours, education attainment, experience, and geography. That explains part of the difference in pay between men and women, but not all of it. And even though most economists agree that after adjusting for age, education, experience and other variables there's still an unexplained gap, there are voices who argue that the gender pay gap is a myth. Pay gap deniers purport that women's choices, rather than discrimination, cause the pay gap between women and men. But those choices are actually consequences of the social forces at play.

The New York Times has run a couple of pieces comparing university tuition fees in America with the US, UK, and other systems around the world. These pieces look at the advantages and disadvantages of the different systems (with Australia coming out as having some clear benefits)