ESRA 2027 sessions by theme
Back to Overview of Sessions
Diversity in Socio-Demographic Variables: Methodological Challenges and New Approaches |
| Coordinator 1 | Dr Lisa de Vries (FernUniversität in Hagen) |
| Coordinator 2 | Dr Verena Ortmanns (German Institute for Lifelong Learning) |
| Coordinator 3 | Dr Katharina Meitinger (Utrecht University) |
Session Details
Socio-demographic variables are collected in almost every survey and often constitute key variables in data analysis. Although the measurement of socio-demographic variables has already been extensively discussed in methodological research, increasing societal diversity challenges conventional categories and measurement practices. The growing visibility of sexual and gender diversity, the pluralization of family and partnership forms, and increasingly complex migration and identification experiences reveal the limitations of established socio-demographic variables in survey research and official statistics.
In recent years, an increasing number of surveys have incorporated revised socio-demographic variables into their questionnaires to better capture society’s growing diversity. This development is accompanied by new challenges and opportunities regarding questionnaire design, measurement validity, data comparability, and data analysis. This session invites researchers and survey practitioners to discuss current developments as well as methodological and practical challenges. We also invite more conceptual or theoretical contributions on this topic.
Relevant topics include (but are not limited to):
• Sexual and gender diversity: Which existing categories need to be revised? What methodological challenges does this entail?
• Diverse family and partnership forms: Which real-life family forms have not been represented to date (e.g., non-biological parenthood, multi-parent families, chosen families, post-separation families)? How can these be better represented, and what obstacles appear? Which forms of partnership are currently excluded from statistics (e.g., non-monogamous and polyamorous relationships, living-apart-together partnerships)? How can this gap be remedied? What methodological challenges should be considered?
• Diverse dimensions of ethnic and cultural background, migration, and (self-)identification: How can we improve the way we survey migration experiences, nationality, migrant and ethnic self-identification, and experiences of racism? What methodological challenges does this entail?
• Intersectionality: Where do we currently lack data to better take intersectionality into account? What challenges does this entail?
