Christopher Whiteside MBE is currently chairman of Whitehaven & Workington Conservatives. He writes this blog in a personal capacity. He previously stood for parliament in Copeland and Leeds NE.
He has served as a County, City & District, Borough, Town and Parish councillor, and has also been a school governor and health authority member. He is currently an Egremont Town Councillor.
He lives and works in the North of England, dividing his time between Cumbria and Yorkshire.
Ron Coase's comments are worth bearing in mind when considering any statistics in the sense that it is always a good idea to think about whether the people who prepared the statistics might accidentally or deliberately have slanted them.
I would not exempt any statistics on any subject from that concern in the sense that it is always worth asking yourself the question,
"How confident should I be that these stats were prepared and analysed in a way which was not subject to bias?"
To that extent you have a valid point.
Personally I think the message coming from the people who produce the stats on the gender pay gap - e.g. that the gap is smaller than it has ever been but there still is one - is a story which sounds extremely plausible to me so I am inclined to believe that they are not slanting the data.
Comments
I would not exempt any statistics on any subject from that concern in the sense that it is always worth asking yourself the question,
"How confident should I be that these stats were prepared and analysed in a way which was not subject to bias?"
To that extent you have a valid point.
Personally I think the message coming from the people who produce the stats on the gender pay gap - e.g. that the gap is smaller than it has ever been but there still is one - is a story which sounds extremely plausible to me so I am inclined to believe that they are not slanting the data.
you see for every £1 a man earns in any given company, all a woman in the same company, and the same job, for the same amount of time is 100p