A B B O T T L. F E R R I S S
SELECTIONS
FROM
S I N E T - - The Social Indicators Network News
(25 November, 1990)
World Bank Assembles 94 Indicators on 170 Countries Washington, DC: The World Bank has published a compilation of 94 indicators on 170 countries that traces trends in the general welfare over about three decades. The 94 indicators for each country are organized under five major headings: human resources, labor force, natural resources, income and poverty, expenditure and investment in human capital. The tables contain blank cells, for countries with less developed statistics. However, comparative data are given for each country in the form of the value for other countries in the same region and for the low income economies and the next higher income group. The indicators are extracted from the Bank Economic and Social Database (BESD), which adds indicators from time to time for "evaluating and monitoring of social progress." Inquiry on the availability of new indicators may be made by addressing: Chief, Socio-Economic Data Division, World Bank, 1818 H St. NW, Washington, DC 20433. The 1989 volume includes several new indicators: illiteracy, access to health care, indicators of shares of GDP for selected social expenditures, and others. Altogether this edition includes about a third more indicators than the last edition. Data are in three broad time-frames: 1960--65, 1970--75, and the most recent, 1988 (for GNP per capita and population) and 1985 for most others. The data also are available for IBM-compatible PCs. With the purchase of the package (USS95. plus $3.50) two versions are provided on both 5 1/4" and 3 1/2" diskettes, as well as a copy of the book. Address: World Bank Publications, P. O. Box 7247-8619, Philadelphia, PA 19170-8619, U.S.A. For a copy of the volume only (USS24.95), ask for Social Indicators of Development 1989, stock no. 44006, Social Indicators Research 27:199--203, 1992. 9 1992 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.
SELECTIONS address: World Bank Publications, Dept. J2152, 1818 H St. NW, Washington, DC 20433, USA; tel. 202 473-7543.
Symposium on "Whatever Happened to Social Indicators ?" Glasgow, Scotland: A symposium on "Whatever Happened to Social Indicators?" has been published in the Journal of Public Policy (vol. 9, no. 4, 1989), edited by Richard Rose (University of Strathclyde). Brief articles by eleven scholars of social indicators review the recent past and present state of art and expected future directions. The Abstract follows: "Twenty years ago the publication of Toward A Social Report by the United States Department of Health, Education and Welfare was hailed as a major forward step in developing indicators of conditions in society into a national system of social accounting of relevance to public policy. The resulting social indicators movement quickly mobilized able social scientists to produce a variety of indicators monitoring trends in their society, and internationally. National governments too began to sponsor new types of social reports. The years since have seen an apparent decline in the momentum of the social indicators movement. Hence, to evaluate developments, the Journal of Public Policy invited a number of distinguished pioneers in the movement in Europe and America to give their individual assessments of what has happened to social indicators." Titles of the contributions are: Andrews: The Evolution of a Movement; Blumer: Problems of Theory and Measurement; Ferriss: Whatever Happened Indeed!; Gershuny: Time Budgets as Social Indicators; Glatzer and Noll: Social Indicators and Social Reporting in Germany; Innes: Disappointments and Legacies of Social Indicators; Johnston: Some Reflections on the United States; MacRae: Policy Indicators, A Continuing and Needed Field; Vogel: Social Indicators, A Swedish Perspective; Ward: Social Indicators, A World Perspective. The journal is published by Cambridge University Press, The Edinburgh Bldg., Shaftsbury Rd., Cambridge, CB2 2RU, England; FAX: Cambridge (0223) 315052, UK 0-521.
FROM SINET
201
Science and Technology in the U.S. Academic Enterprise The past and future prospects of the U.S. academic enterprise in science and technology are reviewed in an initial volume of a continuing study of trends in funds, expenditures, personnel, enrollments and degrees of U.S. institutions. The effort is jointly sponsored by the U.S. National Academy of Science, the National Academy of Engineering and the Institute of Medicine. Except for enrollments and earned degrees, the indicators presented in graph consist primarily of sources and expenditures of funds, disaggregated by broad academic categories. Detail by field is sparse. Most data are from the National Science Foundation database, CASPAR, for trends 1953 or 1958 to 1988. With the purpose of sustaining the quality of the academic enterprise, the following emerging trends are identified: The academic research community will have to function in an increasingly complex environment. "Universities and research sponsors face difficulty in rapidly adapting to a changing research environment." The demand for academic research personnel will increase during the next decade. Fewer U.S. students are interested in, or qualified for, academic research careers. "Sustaining the quality of current research institutions and programs is increasingly expensive." A graph of U.S. annual degrees granted in U.S. higher education shows increases following the wars and under the stimulus of expenditures for research, and declines during the wars and following "economic stagnation." Science and Technology in the Academic Enterprise: Status, Trends and Issues, may be obtained, gratis, from the Research Roundtable, Natoinal Academy of Science, 2101 Constitution Ave., NW, Suite NAS 340, Washington, DC 20418, USA.
What Futurists Believe: Keys to Devising Social Indicators A World Future Society book presents visions of the future of seventeen futurists and gives social indicator researchers and policymakers a number of theoretical keys to what should be measured and monitored, beginning now, to detect social change. What Futurists Believe by
202
SELECTIONS
Joseph F. Coates and Jennifer Jarratt is published by Lomond Pub., Inc., Mt. Airy, MD, 1989, and is available from the World Future Society, 4916 St. Elmo Ave., Bethesda, MD 20814. The seventeen include the leaders of futurist thought, including: Daniel Bell (Harvard Univ.), Roy Amara (Institute for the Future), Robert U. Ayres (Carnegie Mellon Univ.), Kenneth E. Boulding (Univ. of Colorado), Arthur C. Clarke (Univ. of Moratuwa), Peter Drucker (Claremont Grad. School), Victor C. Ferkiss (Georgetown Univ.), Barry B. Hughes (Univ. of Denver), Alexander King (Club of Rome), Richard D. Lamm (former Governor of Colorado), Michael Marien (editor, Future Survey Annual), Dennis L. Meadows (Dartmouth College), James A. Ogilvy (Esalen Institute), Gerald K. O'Neill (Space Studies Institute), John R. Pilerce (emeritus, Cal. Tech.), Peter Schwartz (futurist and planner, Palo Alto, CA), and Robert Theobald (Knowledge Systems, Inc.). Most of them agree that things will become more complex. The question becomes how this may be "managed." The current institutional structure -- mostly government -- cannot do it, they say. The corporation is advanced as the answer, despite its temerity in taking on this role. Many future changes will be generated by science and technology: in telematics, in biotechnology, in new materials, etc. There will be a transition from oil as the predominant energy source to something else over the next twenty to fifty years. World population growth and the consequent increase in demand on resources and food cannot continue unchecked. A slowdown is the prospect, unless collapse hits first. Future transitions will take place while maintaining stable institutional forms: governance, management and institutional structures. (Apparently, this is meant to apply to Western democratic forms, for it certainly cannot be said of most of the world, where social structures are crumbling. Perhaps stability depends upon the capability of a social system to adjust.) Futurists expect wiser heads to avoid nuclear war. They expect greater interdependence over the globe. They expect this interdependence to be accompanied by a decline in U.S. world influence. They see formal education going downhill, being supplanted by information technologies outside the school for many purposes. Despite this, higher
FROM S I N E T
203
demands of literacy and competence will be made by the future "Information Society." While futurists generally agree on the above, they disagree on other areas, especially on the role of science and technology and the efficacy of economic forces in world development.
(Editor's Note: Readers interested in contributing news items to this department should address them to: SINET, P. O. Box 24064, Emory University Station, Atlanta, GA 30322.)
