Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Disadvantaged youth report relies on incorrect data

A report about disadvantaged youth in NZ contains incorrect data.

The teenage birth rate for 2008 (December quarter) was 33 per 1,000 - not somewhere around 22.

The NZ Institute has relied on OECD data. I have previously written to the OECD pointing out their errors in this particular table but it remains uncorrected. The US total was also considerably higher at 41.5 percent.



Don't have time now to look at the other statistics. They may be OK but I have long since decided not to rely on the OECD Family Database. And the NZ Institute could have easily cross-checked the NZ statistic with Statistics New Zealand.

2 comments:

Lillian Grace said...

Hi Lindsay, I am one of the authors of the paper you are referring to.

To clarify - we did not rely on the OECD data to draw conclusions. We saw the discrepancy and contacted Statistics New Zealand about it but they were unable to explain the difference so we went with the more conservative data from the OECD, noting that both sources drew the same conclusion.

Lindsay Mitchell said...

It isn't "more conservative" data, it is incorrect data.

Knowing that you still chose to use the graph. I wouldn't have.

http://www.stats.govt.nz/~/media/Statistics/Publications/population/demographic-trends-2010/Tables%20Part%202%20Births.xls

Table 2.07 shows NZ having the second highest teen birthrate of 14 developed countries.