The establishment of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) provides an opportunity to develop a new equality concept and way of measuring equality that is appropriate for the needs of a multicultural democracy in the 21st century.
The new single equality concept directly focuses on the central and valuable things in life that people can actually do and be – taking account of the equality characteristics of age, disability, ethnicity, gender, religion or belief, and sexual orientation, and the perspective of human rights. It moves away from old-style approaches towards equality based on opportunities and outcomes.
The Commission has a legal duty to monitor and evaluate progress towards equality. Taking the single equality concept as the starting point it has been developing, with others, the Equality Measurement Framework (EMF), as recommended by the Equalities Review (2007).
The development of the EMF has drawn on three key inputs: the theoretical underpinning of the capability approach developed by Amartya Sen; the international human rights framework; and extensive consultation with the general public, individuals and groups at risk of discrimination and disadvantage.
In this seminar, Tania Burchardt will discuss the current EMF proposal highlighting challenges in measuring Equality, including (1) the identification of relevant dimensions; (2) the construction of corresponding indicators; (3) the aggregation of various dimensions into a single measure of wellbeing; (4) how to incorporate the analysis of freedom.
Presented by:
Tania Burchardt (STICERD, London School of Economics) (joint with Polly Wizard)
Date & time:
January 26, 2009 4:00 pm - January 26, 2009 5:00 pm
External seminars home