Applications of multilevel models with country as a unit of analysis

5:00-7:30 pm, 11 December 2012, The Royal Statistical Society 12 Errol Street, London EC1Y 8LX

The Social Consequences of Unemployment in Europe: a Two-Stage Multilevel Analysis: Vanessa Gash (City University) In this paper we examine the relationship between unemployment and social participation and aim to identify the role of national policies and attitudes as possible mediators. We use the 2006 EU-SILC module on social participation – a dataset that provides rich information on social participation for 24 EU countries. We adopt a two-stage multilevel design, allowing us to directly examine the impact of national policies and norms on individual outcome. The paper reveals clear evidence that the negative impact of unemployment on participation levels can be alleviated by macro-level factors. Societies where egalitarian ideals are held high have higher social participation rates amongst their unemployed

Exploiting Space and Time in Multilevel Models: Applications to Climate Change and Religiosity: Malcolm Fairbrother (University of Bristol) Multilevel/mixed models are routinely fitted to longitudinal data (with observations nested within units) and also to units nested within groups at a given point in time (such as respondents to a survey nested within their countries of residence). Increasing numbers of datasets in many fields of research are characterised by both types of clustering simultaneously. I present two useful techniques for analysing data with these characteristics. These techniques allow change over time in y to be a function of change over time in x and/or the time-invariant level of x. Simulation studies show that these techniques are generally robust even to the presence of complications that may arise with real-world data. I then demonstrate the kinds of insights they can provide, using applications to two very different topics: the relationships between climate and economic growth, and between social inequality and religiosity.

Ian Plewis (University of Manchester) will act as a discussant for the papers. The meeting will be preceded by the AGM of the Social Statistics section.

Crime surveys user meeting

Thursday 13 December 2012
Royal Statistical Society, London

This meeting will provide a forum for data users and producers to meet and discuss new developments and exchange information about the UK crime surveys.

The meeting is free to attend and lunch will be provided. To view the programme and book a place please go to www.ccsr.ac.uk/esds/events/2012-12-13/

Labour Force Survey/Annual Population Survey user meeting

Monday 10 December 2012
Royal Statistical Society, London

This meeting will provide a forum for data users and producers to meet and discuss new developments and exchange information about the Labour Force Survey (LFS) and Annual Population Survey (APS).

The meeting is free to attend and lunch will be provided. To view the draft programme and book a place please go to www.ccsr.ac.uk/esds/events/2012-12-10/

Launch of new Health Statistics Users' Group website

The Health Statistics User Group (HSUG) has launched a new website: http://www.hsug.org.uk/.

Resources available on the website include presentations from the 20th Anniversary conference which can be found under 'HSUG material'.

The content on the site is accessible to all, but registration is reqiured in order to take active part in discussions, post comments and initiate discussion threads. Registering will enable you to receive regular updates about new material on the site.

The new site has been developed in partnership with the Royal Statistical Society in its development of StatsUserNet  <http://www.statsusernet.org.uk/> as a way of improving user participation in official statistics. Being part of StatsUserNet allows you to look at, and become involved in, discussions not only on health statistics but also related statistical areas such as Census and Well-being.

The site also gives access to all the material that were available on the old site.

Olympics – participation, performance and legacy

3 July 2012, 5pm,

Royal Statistical Society, 12 Errol Street, London, EC1Y 8LX

With the London Olympics about to begin, we recognise the important contribution statistics make in the measurement of sporting participation, the improvement of sporting performance and in measuring the lasting impact of the Games.

The speakers will be:

Andrew Spiers, Sport England

Measuring public participation in sport including the challenges of collecting data for detailed estimates in a social survey

Beverley Hale, University of Chichester

Studies and statistics leading to advances in performance-based knowledge and success in an Olympic Setting

Alex Wilkinson, Department for Culture, Media and Sport

Describing the plans for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Meta-Evaluation which will look across a large number of surveys, programme and project-level evaluations and other studies to measure the impacts and legacy of the Games.

Tea/coffee served from 4.30pm. Attendance is free and open to all, but pre-registration is

recommended. You can register by emailevents@rss.org.uk or by phone (020) 7638 8998.

For further information about the meeting, contact Charles Lound (charles.lound@ons.gov.uk). For directions, see www.rss.org.uk/findus.