Whatever Happened to Social Indicators? A Symposium

Abstract

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 assessment of what has happened to social indicators.