No Equality without Data | Open Society Foundations (OSF)
▻http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/voices/no-equality-without-data
Data has long been a key component in efforts to promote equal treatment. The collection of data broken down by sex, for example, has been used to foster equality between men and women across Europe. In 2012, when data revealed that far fewer women held management positions than men, the European Commission took steps to correct gender balances in high-level positions of publicly traded companies. Data is also key to assess discrimination based on age—for instance, when analyzing recruitment practices of older (or younger) workers.
But when it comes to people with disabilites or racial and ethnic minorities, accurate data is not yet available that would allow policy makers to measure the extent of inequality in fields like employment or education. In fact, most member states of the European Union do not use data broken down by accurate categories of ethnic origin or disability in order to inform policies that aim to promote equality