Social Indicators—Systems, Methods And Problems

Professor Moser regards the purpose of social indicators as being to aid the policy maker by summarizing the state and changing conditions of society, pinpointing the outstanding existing and emerging social problems and monitoring the effects of social policies and programmes. Thus social indicators will frequently, though not necessarily, be normative and they will often, though again not necessarily, be concerned with outputs rather than inputs. Although many writers regard social indicators as being combinations of series, the problems of construction are substantial. Central to the idea of a social indicator, however, is that it should represent or summarize a broader concept than itself and that it should belong to a structure or system of series. Although there are no social theories about society in general on which a structure of indicators can at present be based there are a number of middle range theories relating to specific fields or sectors, such as occupational mobility, education, migration, mental health, etc., around which quantitative relationships and models can gradually be be built to give insight into social changes and perhaps eventually into the manipulation of policy instruments for the improvement of social conditions.