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Henno Theisens reports from the Annual Seminar of the European Observatory on Demography and the Social Situation held on the 25th and 26th of October in Brussels
I went to Brussels for the first day of a meeting of the Annual Seminar of the European Observatory on Demography and the Social Situation. This was a meeting of the four networks that co-operate in this observatory to share findings and discuss new topics to be covered.
Presentations were made of the four draft reports that have been produced in the networks.
The following presentations were made:
• Nico van Nimwegen (NIDI): Demography Network
• Terry Ward (Applica): Social Inclusion and Income Network
• Elias Mossialos (LSE): Health and Living Conditions Network
• Robert Leonardi (LSE): Social Capital Network
Nico van Nimwegen presented a basic overview of demographic trends, with a section on education that draws heavily on EAG material. There material and analysis of education is quite basic, but they are looking to do more on education and there seemed an interest to work on indicators for life long learning.
The networks on social inclusion and health are really outstanding networks. Very interesting information, and very thorough analyses. In the work on social inclusion a for education particularly interesting piece of analysis is the intergenerational transmission of disadvantages. Here the report looks at probabilities of people with parents who have different educational background to go into higher education. They compare different generation of people and are therefore able to give some insights in trends as well as international comparability
The work done in the network on social capital was of a very different nature than that of the other three networks. The report is a methodological analysis of what social capital is, how is it measure and what the problems are rather than a report on trends and their implication. I think they rightly point out that much trend work on social capital is based on a few very limited indicators and that these indicators are sometimes flawed too .
Having worked on trends in the context of education within CERI I know how difficult it is to find reliable data and analyses of trends. These four networks are a very welcome addition to the material available at the moment. For more information, please check the EU website for the Observatory.
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