Nigel Marriott's Blog

An independent statistician using data to understand our world and to predict the future

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Pay Gap Case Study #1 – Life on Mars

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The UK is facing the challenge of interpreting the first round of gender pay gap data. I listed some of the challenges in my article “the 7 ways to misuse gender pay gap data“ where in statement 4, I concluded a lack of understanding of the laws of chance will result in unjustified allegations of gender discrimination against some organisations.  In this article, I want to demonstrate the laws of chance using nothing more than some dice and coins, a process known as simulation.  My simulation model is simple enough for you to repeat by yourselves and at the end, you will have a better idea of the extent to which median gender pay gaps can vary even when organisations do not discriminate in any shape or form.

*** This article was edited on 25th January 2025 to bring it in line with my current style guide.  There is no material change to the content.
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Pay Gaps #1 – 7 ways to misuse gender pay gap data

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April 2018 was the deadline for submitting gender pay gap results and we now have the first detailed picture of how pay differs between men and women in the UK.  A nifty government website can be used to look up pay gap details for any company employing more than 250 employees and you can also download the results for further analysis.  So what will happen next?  Will the data be used properly to inform debate about how men and women are paid or will it be misused for personal and political gain?

I believe this data can be of benefit to the debate around gender equality but my fear is that to begin with, it will be misused, misinterpreted and reinforce the saying “lies, damned lies and statistics”.  So if you want to misuse gender pay gap data, who better to ask that a professional statistician like me who will show you how you can do this by commenting on 7 plausible statements.

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Forecasting#1 – How do you identify a good forecaster?

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“I think the people in this country have had enough of experts”

Michael Gove, Sky News, 3rd June 2016

This was one of the most memorable quotes during the EU referendum in 2016 and came in response to a question as to why the forecasts of a whole list of organisations such as the IMF should be ignored.  It prompted a flurry of rebuttals and articles supporting or damning him and the debate has not gone away.

Like so many quotes, it has already become distorted.  I strongly recommend you listen to the full question and answer because here is his quote in its entirety. 

“I think the people in this country have had enough of experts… from organisations with acronyms saying that they know what is best and getting it consistently wrong.”

When I read this full quote I realised I am in complete agreement with Michael Gove. 

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Stats in the News #1 – Science & Technology March 2017

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Welcome to my first post where I put my Evidence Hierarchy or Circle into practice and show you what is behind the headline.

Today I am concentrating on science and technology related articles from the BBC website since that is accessible to nearly everyone.  As always, I am critiquing the article more than the research since I have not read the research papers that motivated the article.  The 3 articles are:

  1. “Fruit shaped sensor can improve freshness“.
  2. “Robots to affect up to 30% of jobs“
  3. “Dinosaurs may have UK origin“

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