Aleks Collingwood, Partnership Manager at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, writes on the challenges of understanding poverty and inequality in the UK with the current limitations in socio-demographic datasets. The blog both identifies the consequences of data gaps, and what is needed to ensure greater access to high-quality inclusive data capable of driving social justice efforts.
Nissa Finney, founding member of the Centre on the Dynamics of Ethnicity, explores the importance of community involvement and co-production in creating racially inclusive datasets.
Dharmi Kapadia, Senior Lecturer at University of Manchester, and Director at the Centre on the Dynamics of Ethnicity, presents research carried out alongside Harry Taylor and Laia Becares (King’s College London) on the limitations of ONS life expectancy estimates published in 2021.
As the Race Equality Foundation, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, and the Centre on the Dynamics of Ethnicity, launch their landmark conference, ‘Advancing Racial Justice: Convention on the State of Data 2026’, our Chief Executive, Jabeer Butt, reflects on the use, and mis-use, of ethnicity data from the 1960s to the present day.
