Social Science sites of the week 14th Feb 2020

Sites of the week
Here is the latest round up

Valentines Day for social scientists

For the economist
Consider how much people spend on Valentines Day

National Retail Federation (USA)

Gives the data that in 2020 American consumers are expected to spend $196 up 30% to 2019. One of the fastest rising markets is gifts for pets! 27% of those who celebrate buy a gift for pet. Get further details from the website!

They have a very good data resources center.

with gift trends and demographics of those who buy. Find out who is the most generous.!
For the UK. Statista has data. Remember to check the methodology of any surveys.
they quote a Savvy survey of shoppers on what they spend and what they hope to get
Ibisworld has a good infographic on spending in 2019
£391 million on eating out and £62 million on cards
Search SSRN papers to find examples of economic articles on the topic.

For social historians and romantics
Some great examples of historic cards can be found on many online libraries and museums
You can search the V&A Collections database to get a taste
The NYPL gallery has some cute examples
BBC history magazine has a short potted history to the celebrations
V&A showcases some of its Victorian examples

Ireland Elections

Ireland has been to the polls over the weekend.
Official results are posted on the parliamentary website
background information on the voting process and system is provided on a citizens website
Other sources of election results both recent and historical include:

ElectionsIreland.org, produced in association with Seán Donnelly, author of various books on Irish elections
NSD elections database covers 1990-2015
Irish National Election Study Data an extensive five-wave panel survey of (initially) 2663 respondents covers the Irish general elections of 2002 and 2007, as well as the local and European Parliament elections of 2004.data can be downloaded.
Women for Election – get names and facts about female candidates and campaigns to increase gender equality from this organisation

Key Political Parties
.Sinn Fein
Fine Gael
Fianna Fail
Newspaper coverage

Key sources with articles and polls include:
Irish Times
RTE
Academic analysis
Trinity College Dublin page from Michael Gallagher
Irish Elections: Geography, Facts and Analyses
Adrian Kavanagh, Maynooth University Department of Geography
Irish Politics Forum blog from the Political Studies Association of Ireland

Urban Environment and Social Inclusion Index (UESI) launched.

From Data-Driven EnviroLab (Data-Driven Lab), in collaboration with the Samuel Centre for Social Connectedness, a great initiative which uses satellite and other geospatial data tom provide insight on environmental indicators and urban inequality in 162 cities worldwide. Key focuses are air quality, climate, tree cover, water supply and transport. So in this map of London see data on income mapped with areas of the city in terms of access to public transport and environmental pollution.

On the urban theme The Centre for Cities has also this week launched two new indexes relating to the UK’s towns and cities. These are the Employment opportunities and business environment indices . They can be used to track evidence of a North south regional divide in opportunities in the UK

Women in Science

Wonderful visual biographies complied by the UN for the International day of Women in Science which was held on 11th February. They cover seven women scientists and are intended to inspire young girls to take up scientific careers.

“Female Librarians and Male Computer Programmers? Gender Bias in Occupational Images on Digital Media Platforms”

Interesting research from Rutgers university. The author version of the paper can be downloaded free of charge from the author’s website. The researchers analysed Twitter, NYTimes.com, Wikipedia, and Shutterstock. They searched for images of a number of occupations/ professions they then compared the search results to the gender representation of each occupation as from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

.Findings included ”Women were overrepresented as librarians and nurses and underrepresented as computer programmers and civil engineers” certain types of site were more likely to stick to traditional gender stereotypes.

See more recent gender reports on our scoop.it website

Is Britain fair if you are Black? some academic research on FTSE boards and more.

According to a review released this week more than 30% of FTSE 100 companies do not have a BAME Black board member
Read the full facts in the EY Parker review 2020 report
it is an update to an earlier 2016 Parker report on ethnic diversity on boards. Read the full text to compare trends
Also at the end of 2019 the Green Park review of leadership in Uk companies found that while inequality was dreasing by gender fro BAME . “For BAME leaders, progress has been slower and more inconsistent. At the very top of the FTSE 100 companies, there has been no improvement since 2014, with representation stuck at around 3%. At wider Board level, progress has been limited at around two percentage points and actually went into reverse over the last 12 months among both NEDs and Executive Directors”

What percentage of the UK population are black?

Get data on this from the UK census
and the Ethnicity facts webpage maintained by the Uk government

Are they over represented in poor lower grade jobs?
The ONS produces data on employment type by ethnic group 4 times per year in its labour market reports. It also has this useful summary of facts and figures on unemployment by ethnic group which shows that BAME groups are much more likely to be unemployed than the white population.

Race in the workplace: The McGregor-Smith Review in 2017
Independent review by Baroness McGregor-Smith considering the issues affecting black and minority ethnic (BME) groups in the workplace concluded that “There is discrimination and bias at every stage of an individual’s career, and even before it begins”.

What about other areas of life?

Do Black people get a bad deal?
The only conclusion according to the Racial Disparity Audit of 2017 is yes. This is ma simplified statement of several facts from a complex report, but findings include: “Relative to the UK population overall, people living in households headed by someone in the Asian, Black or Other ethnic groups were disproportionately likely to be on a low income. Almost half of households in these ethnic groups had incomes in the bottom 40% nationally before housing costs were taken into account.”

Key sites for tracing policy documents include:
Equality and Human Rights Commission
Runnymede Trust publish reports holding the government to account.
Institute of Race Relations research on race and public policy
they produce a calendar of racism and resistance
A fortnightly resource for anti-racist and social justice campaigns, highlighting key events in the UK and Europe

SearchCulture.gr: Digital Library of Greek Culture

Free access to over 430,000 items from the National Documentation Center (NDC) of great value to social, cultural, economic and political historians of Greece. It is adding items online from over 50 leading Greek museums and cultural institutions.

They include these stunning examples of needlework, Newspapers, magazines, photographs and maps. Browse by item type and time period or search by keyword in English or Greek.