People outside the labour market

Description:

This article analyses labour market participation in the European Union (EU), broken down by sex and age, on the basis of the results of the EU Labour force survey (EU-LFS). In 2013, the number of inactive persons as a percentage of the working age population in the EU-28 reached a new low of 28.0 %, continuing the downward trend of the previous years. This positive development is largely due to the increased participation of women in the labour market. The economically inactive population remains a heterogeneous group, e.g. as regards age, reasons for inactivity and the level of attachment to the labour market.

Source: EuroStat

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Passenger Travel Facts and Figures 2014

Description:
The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) today released Passenger Travel Facts and Figures 2014, a snapshot of the characteristics and trends of personal travel in the United States; the network over which passenger travel takes place; and the related economic, safety, and environmental implications. The 77-page report summarizes the basic demographic and economic characteristics of the United States that contribute to the demand for passenger travel; examines travel patterns by trip purpose, transportation mode, and household characteristics; provides a picture of the passenger transportation system in 2005 and 2011 and summarizes movement on the system by transportation mode and congestion impacts; discusses the economic characteristics of passenger travel and tourism and discusses the safety, energy, and environmental impacts of passenger travel. It is intended as a companion to Freight Facts and Figures, which is produced jointly by BTS and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA).

Source: Bureau of Transportation Statistics

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Statistical Resource: The EU in the world

Introduction:

...provides a selection of statistics on the European Union (EU) — considered as a single entity — in comparison with the 15 non-EU countries from the Group of Twenty (G20). It aims to give an insight into the European economy, society and environment in comparison with the major economies from the rest of the world.

Table of contents

Introduction
1. Population
2. Living conditions
3. Health
4. Education and training
5. Labour market
6. Economy and finance
7. International trade
8. Industry, trade and services
9. Research and communication
10. Transport
11. Agriculture, forestry and fisheries
12. Environment
13. Energy

Source: Eurostat
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Comparing Regions: Well-being database of OECD countries

From the news release:

Life expectancy, air quality, safety and other indicators of well-being can vary dramatically within countries, depending on which region you live in. Looking beyond national averages is vital to get an accurate picture of quality of life and to guide local government policy.

The OECD today launched a regional well-being website based on an interactive map covering the Organisation’s 34 member countries. It rates 362 sub-national regions with a relative score out of 10 in eight categories: income, health, safety, services, civic engagement, education, jobs and environment.

Source: Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development

Explore the regional well-being website
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Federal Workforce Statistics Sources: OPM and OMB

From the introduction:

This report describes online tools, reports, and data compilations created by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) that contain statistics about federal employees and the federal workforce.

The report also describes key characteristics of each resource and briefly discusses selected methodological differences, with the intention of facilitating the selection of appropriate data for specific purposes. This report is not intended to be a definitive list of all information on the federal workforce. It describes significant and recurring products that contain specific data often requested by Members or congressional staff.

Source: Congressional Research Service via Federation of American Scientists

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The Wisdom of Smaller, Smarter Crowds

Description:

The “wisdom of crowds” refers to the phenomenon that aggregated predictions from a large group of people can rival or even beat the accuracy of experts. In domains with substantial stochastic elements, such as stock picking, crowd strategies (e.g. indexing) are difficult to beat. However, in domains in which some crowd members have demonstrably more skill than others, smart sub-crowds could possibly outperform the whole. The central question this work addresses is whether such smart subsets of a crowd can be identified a priori in a large-scale prediction contest that has substantial skill and luck components. We study this question with data obtained from fantasy soccer, a game in which millions of people choose professional players from the English Premier League to be on their fantasy soccer teams. The better the professional players do in real life games, the more points fantasy teams earn. Fantasy soccer is ideally suited to this investigation because it comprises millions of individual-level, within-subject predictions, past performance indicators, and the ability to test the effectiveness of arbitrary player-selection strategies. We find that smaller, smarter crowds can be identified in advance and that they beat the wisdom of the larger crowd. We also show that many players would do better by simply imitating the strategy of a player who has done well in the past. Finally, we provide a theoretical model that explains the results we see from our empirical analyses.

Source: Microsoft Research

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United Nations Report: The Global Study on Homicide

Description:

The Global Study on Homicide 2013 seeks to shed light on the worst of crimes - the "unlawful death purposefully inflicted on a person by another person." In 2012, intentional homicide took the lives of almost half a million people. The study of intentional homicide is relevant not only because it is the study of the ultimate crime, whose ripple effect goes far beyond the initial loss of human life, but because lethal violence can create a climate of fear and uncertainty. Intentional homicide also victimizes the family and community of the victim, who can be considered secondary victims, and when justice is not served, impunity can lead to further victimization in the form of the denial of the basic human right to justice.

 Source: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime

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Ukraine Population Census

Issues of identity, language and ethnicity have been mentioned as part of the background of recent events in Ukraine, although scholars and commentators have diverging opinions on the extent to which they really reflect divisions in Ukrainian society. The 2001 Ukraine population census is available online with the following break out tables and information:

• Total number of actual population
  
According to the refined data of the All-Ukrainian Population Census ‘2001, the total number of the actual population of Ukraine at the date of 5 December 2001 accounted for 48.457 thousand people.


• Urban and rural population
  The number of the urban population, according to the All-Ukrainian Population Census ‘2001 data, accounted for 32.574 thousand persons, or 67.2%, and that of the rural population 15.883 thousand people, or 32.8%.
  
  
• Gender structure of the population
  
According to the All-Ukrainian Population Census ‘2001 data, the number of men totaled 22.441 thousand people, or 46.3%, that of women - 26.016 thousand people, or 53.7%.


• Number of the cities
During the years that have passed since the census of the population ‘1989, the number of towns in Ukraine has increased by 20 and on the date of the All-Ukrainian Population Census ‘2001 there were 454 units.


• Permanent population
The total number of the permanent population of Ukraine on the date of 5 December 2001 accounted for 48.241 thousand people, including men – 22.316 thousand people, or 46.3%, women - 25.925 thousand people, or 53.7%; the urban population – 32.291 thousand people, or 66.9%, the rural population – 15.950 thousand people, or 33.1%.


• Age structure of population
The age structure of the population, stated by the All-Ukrainian Population Census ‘2001, is characterized by the following data: the part of children in population has decreased, while the part of the persons at the age older than able-to-work has increased, that considerably complicates present demographic situation in the country and says about ageing of the population.


• National composition of the population
The peculiarity of the national structure of the population of Ukraine is its multinational composition. According to the All-Ukrainian Population Census ‘2001 data, the representatives of more than 130 nationalities and ethnic groups live on the territory of the country.


• Linguistic composition of population
The language structure of Ukraine, according to the All-Ukrainian Census data, is various. The part of those whose mother tongue is Ukrainian totals 67.5% of the population of Ukraine, this is by 2.8 percentage points more than in 1989. The percentage of those whose mother tongue is Russian totals 29.6% of the population. Comparatively with the data of previous census this index has decreased by 3.2 percentage points. The part of other languages, specified like mother tongue, during the period that have passed since previous census has increased by 0.4 percentage points and accounts for 2.9%.


• Educational level of the population
The results of the All-Ukrainian Population Census ‘2001 testified to the tendency to the rise of the educational standard of the population and the increase in the number of people with higher and complete secondary education.


• Marital status
According to the All-Ukrainian Population Census ‘2001 data the number of married men and women accounted for 23.7 million people.

World Bank Report: Gender at Work

From the introduction:

A companion to the 2013 World Development Report on jobs, Gender at Work finds huge, persistent gender gaps at work around the world. This major new report advances our understanding of key trends, patterns, and constraints-and offers innovative, promising approaches to policies and programs that can level the playing field. 

Source: World Bank

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Census Bureau Data Visualization Gallery

Description:

The Census Bureau is working to increase our use of visualization in making data available to the public, and this gallery is an early part of that effort. The first posted visualizations will pertain largely to historical population data, building on prior work done to portray historical changes in the growth and redistribution of the U.S. population. For later visualizations, the topics will expand beyond decennial census data to include the full breadth of Census Bureau data sets and subject areas, from household and family dynamics, to migration and geographic mobility, to economic indicators.

 Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Link to Census Bureau Data Visualization Gallery

Changing Patterns of Global Migration and Remittances

From the overview:

Patterns of global migration and remittances have shifted in recent decades, even as both the number of immigrants and the amount of money they send home have grown, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of data from the United Nations and the World Bank.

A rising share of international migrants now lives in today’s high-income countries such as the United States and Germany, while a growing share was born in today’s middle-income nations such as India and Mexico, the analysis finds.

Source: Pew Research

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The Youngest Americans: A Statistical Portrait of Infants and Toddlers in the United States

Introduction:

America’s youngest children—12 million infants and toddlers—are the leading edge of a demographic transformation in the U.S. They herald a nation more diverse with respect to race/ethnicity, country of origin, language, and family type than at any time in our recent history. They are surrounded by, and engaged with, new technology. Most of our youngest Americans, according to their parents, have at least some of the important characteristics associated with optimal development.

At the same time, they are a generation characterized by marked inequities, with disturbing proportions facing severe disadvantage that imposes both immediate and lasting threats to well-being. Significant numbers are born into families without the human and financial resources to pro- mote their development; disparities by race and Hispanic origin persist; public policy responses have been slow to materialize and, where they exist, often serve only a fraction of the children in need.

 Source: Child Trends and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation

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How's life? 2013 Measuring well-being - Report from the OECD

Description:

Every person aspires to a good life. But what does “a good or a better life” mean? The second edition of How’s Life? paints a comprehensive picture of well-being in OECD countries and other major economies, by looking at people’s material living conditions and quality of life across the population. In addition, the report contains in-depth studies of four key cross-cutting issues in well-being that are particularly relevant: how has well-being evolved during the global economic and financial crisis?; how big are gender differences in well-being?; how can we assess well-being in the workplace?; and how to define and measure the sustainability of well-being over time?

Source: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development

Link to site for full text of How's life? 2013 Measuring well-being.

Also available is an interactive info-graphic where you can rate your own priorities and well being.

United Nations Resource: World Statistics Pocketbook

Overview: 

The World Statistics Pocketbook, 2013 edition is an annual compilation of key statistical indicators prepared by the United Nations Statistics Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Over 50 indicators have been collected from more than 20 international statistical sources and are presented in one-page profiles for 216 countries or areas of the world. This issue covers various years from 2005 to 2012. For the economic indicators, in general, three years - 2005, 2010 and 2011 - are shown; for the indicators in the social and environmental categories, data for one year are presented. 

The topics covered include: agriculture, balance of payments, education, energy, environment, food, gender, health, industrial production, information and communication, international finance, international tourism, international trade, labour, migration, national accounts, population and prices. The technical notes contain brief descriptions of the concepts and methodologies used in the compilation of the indicators as well as information on the statistical sources for the indicators. Reference to primary sources of the data is provided for readers interested in longer time-series data or more detailed descriptions of the concepts or methodologies.

Source: United Nations

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New York City’s Small High Schools Continue to Significantly Raise Graduation Rates

From the overview:

Over half of the new small schools created between the fall of 2002 and the fall of 2008 were intended to serve students in some of the district’s most disadvantaged communities and are located mainly in neighborhoods where large, failing high schools had been closed. MDRC has previously released two reports on these “small schools of choice,” or SSCs (so called because they are small, are academically nonselective, and were created to provide a realistic choice for students with widely varying academic backgrounds). Those reports found marked increases in progress toward graduation and in graduation rates for the cohorts of students who entered SSCs in the falls of 2005 and 2006. The second report also found that the increase in graduation rates applied to every student subgroup examined, and that SSC graduation effects were sustained even after five years from the time sample members entered high school.

This report updates those previous findings with results from a third cohort of students, those who entered ninth grade in the fall of 2007. In addition, for the first time it includes a look inside these schools through the eyes of principals and teachers, as reported in interviews and focus groups held at the 25 SSCs with the strongest evidence of effectiveness.

Source: MDRC
 Download "Sustained Progress" report in pdf format.

Statistical Portrait of Hispanics in the United States

From the description:

This statistical profile of the Latino population is based on Pew Hispanic Center tabulations of the Census Bureau’s 2011 American Community Survey (ACS). Users should exercise caution when comparing the 2011 estimates with estimates for previous years. Population estimates in the 2011 ACS are based on the latest information from the 2010 Decennial Census; the 2005 to 2009 ACS estimates are based on the latest information available for those surveys—updates of the 2000 Decennial Census.

Source: Pew Research Hispanic Center

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Children with Special Health Care Needs in California: A Profile of Key Issues

Description:

Compared to children in other states, California’s children with special health care needs receive care that is less coordinated, less family-centered, and fails to meet many of the key quality indicators prescribed by the Federal Maternal and Child Health Bureau, according to this new analysis of the 2009/10 National Survey of Children with Special Health Care Needs.

Source:  Program for Children with Special Health Care Needs, launched by the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children's Health.

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New Resosurce: Open States

Open States lets you find information about your state representatives and legislation: identify your representative, search and track legislation, explore bill history and votes and contact lawmakers.

Video Tutorial:
Openstates.org is a free tool and makes both their bulk data and api available for others to use.

Mega-States: An Analysis of Student Performance in the Five Most Heavily Populated States in the Nation

Description:

California, Florida, Illinois, New York, and Texas enroll close to 40 percent of the nation’s public school students. The importance of these “Mega-States” goes beyond the sheer size of their population. They now serve more than half of the nation’s English language learners (ELL), as well as some of the largest concentrations of children from lower-income families. As policymakers and educators look at the nation’s changing demographics and explore ways to close achievement gaps, the educational progress of children in these states is of interest far beyond their state borders. That’s why the National Center for Education Statistics and the National Assessment Governing Board focused this special report on educational outcomes in the five largest states.

 Mega-States generally do not perform higher than the nation, but they have made some gains over time.

Source: National Center for Education Statistics

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Developing the Capacity to Understand and Prevent Homicide

Excerpt from the Authors' Abstract: 

The Milwaukee Homicide Review Commission (MHRC) was established in May 2004 to address the city’s persistent lethal violence problem. The MHRC is a multi-tiered intervention with four levels, each of which involves participation by a different set of agencies and stakeholders. A key assumption underlying the four levels of MHRC review, and driving its decision to include stakeholders outside of the traditional criminal justice arena, was that the development and implementation of homicide prevention strategies is a complex and multi-faceted process that can be strengthened by input and buy-in from stakeholders throughout the community. The goal of the MHRC was to foster and support innovative homicide prevention and intervention strategies using the emerging tool of strategic problem analysis.

National Criminal Justice Reference Service

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