Comments on: The statistical invisibility of children and young people

By: Tim

Tim — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 08:26:55 +0000

Your second point is where the issue is. We’ve got a lot of national surveys which //do// have relevance to young people – but they’re not being included to any significant extent in the surveyed sample.

It’s there that I strongly suspect statistics //are// being believed – and are having a profound impact on policy.

By means of a correction however to this post – I understand that most large scale surveys collect age in terms of Date of Birth and then convert that to an age bracket. So the key issue is in analysis not neccessarily collection (although if you know the analysis breaks down as 0 – 19 and it’s trickier to survey a 15 year old than an 18 year old, the incentive is to survey the 18 year old…)

It’s also worth pointing out there is no assumption or claim in the post above that adults are ‘just adults’.

By: Mike Amos-Simpson

Mike Amos-Simpson — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 18:18:47 +0000

firstly never believe statistics

Secondly I would have thought the split of age groups is entirely dependent on the subject matter. If your interest is related to young people you’re more likely to split the ‘youth’ element even further – eg. 0 – 2, 3 – 7, 8 – 10, 11 – 13 etc. or similar

If on the other hand you’re interest has little relevance to under 18′s it makes sense to block out that age group.

I can’t speak for how different a 45 year old is from a 36 year old – but I can say that my life now doesn’t compare in any way to what it was 9 years ago so I don’t think its correct to assume that people over a certain age are necessarily ‘just adults’ any more than everyone under the age of 18 is ‘just a kid’.

My third & final point – never believe statistics!