Social Measurement and Social Indicators: Issues of Policy and Theory

For the early pioneers of the social indicator movement, the possibilities of doing social good by developing the tools of social measurement seemed endless. However, in the early 1980s these high, and perhaps naïve, hopes remained unfulfilled, especially for the data needs of the policy-maker. If not pessimistic, administrators and public policy-makers were at least guarded about the usefulness of social indicators as an aid to increasingly complex decision-making.

These difficulties reflec...