EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Ecological Fallacies and the Analysis of Areal Census Data

S Openshaw
Additional contact information
S Openshaw: Department of Geography, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU, England

Environment and Planning A, 1984, vol. 16, issue 1, 17-31

Abstract: In many countries census data are only reported for areal units and not at the individual level. This custom raises the spectre of ecological fallacy problems. In this paper, a 10% sample census (from the United Kingdom) and individual census data (from Italy) are used to provide an empirical demonstration of the nature and magnitude of these problems. It is concluded that ecological fallacy effects are endemic to areal census data, although their magnitude is perhaps not as large as might have been expected. The principal difficulty is that there is at present no way of predicting in advance the degree of severity likely to be associated with particular variables and particular techniques. Finally, a suggestion is made concerning how the potentially serious practical consequences can be reduced.

Date: 1984
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (25)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1068/a160017 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:envira:v:16:y:1984:i:1:p:17-31

DOI: 10.1068/a160017

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Environment and Planning A
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications (sagediscovery@sagepub.com).

 
Page updated 2024-12-28
Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:16:y:1984:i:1:p:17-31