Year Book of Labour Statistics.Review by: Kenneth O. AlexanderJournal of the American Statistical Association, Vol. 52, No. 280 (Dec., 1957), p. 596Published by: American Statistical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2281725 .

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596 AMtRICAN STATISTICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL, DECEMBER 1957

Year Book of Labour Statistics, Sixteenth Issue. Geneva: International Labour Office, 1956. Pp. xv, 503. $5.00 paper, $6.00 cloth.

KENNETH 0. ALEXANDER, Michigan State University TRHE form and content of this sixteenth publication of international labor statistics

are similar to preceding issues. Text, tables, and notes are all given in English, French, and Spanish. Material is broken down by subject, each subject constituting a chapter. In all chapters, the statistics of the various countries are set forth in a consistent order.

Content of the eleven chapters is as follows: I, Total and economically active popu- lation (breakdowns by sex, age, occupational group, and industry). II, Employment (general indices as well as indices for industries and industry groupings, absolute figures by industry). III, Unemployment (general figures and breakdowns by in- dustrial or occupational groups). IV, Hours of work (average hours worked generally, by industry, by industry groupings and by occupation). V, Wages and labor income (male and female average earnings generally, by industry groupings, by specific in- dustries and by occupation; statistics on total wages and salaries and labor income.) VI, Consumer price indices and retail prices (a total "cost of living" index and indices of some major commodity groupings, retail prices in native currencies for specific consumer goods for the various countries and their major cities). VII, Family living studies (statistics on sources of family income and family consumption expenditure, with more detailed information on patterns of food expenditure). VIII, Social Security (coverage, number of beneficiaries, annual receipts and expenditures). IX, Industrial injuries (fatal injury rates for manufacturing and railways, both fatal and nonfatal rates for mining). X, Industrial disputes ('industrial disputes which resulted in a stoppage of work, and the number of workers involved and working days lost"). XI, Migration (emigration and immigration). Appendix I contains indices of in- dustrial production and wholesale prices and a table of exchange rates in terms of the U. S. dollar. Separate data for the Soviet Union, on population, the industrial distribution of labor, retail prices, labor income, etc., are contained in Appendix II. These Russian data were taken from a 1956 publication of the Central Statistical Administration of the Council of Ministers of the U.S.S.R. Finally, there is a list of publications of various countries which served as statistical sources.

The thorniest of problems, for both the formulators of this volume and its users lies in the question of the comparability of the statistics. It is an old problem for the ILO and concern for it permeates this edition, as it has previous editions. The chapter introductions caution the reader concerning international differences in defini- tions, coverage, statistics-gathering methods, etc. Reference is made to a number of ILO and UN publications dealing in more detail with the problems and methodology of gathering international statistics on a number of subjects. All this is a lesser prob- lem for the user restricting himself to a single country, but even here differences over time in techniques, definition, etc., warrant extreme caution. Such a user should take care to point out at length the differences from statistical practice in his native country, lest conclusions of substantive importance become hopelessly confused with differences of a procedural nature.

Often the data can give only a broad, general picture, subject to qualifications and limitations. But these volumes represent an honest, painstakingly thorough approach to the difficult task of gathering international statistics. On many topics they are the sole source for most of us, the most convenient source for all of us.

As a final practical note, the cloth bound volume seems a much wiser purchase, considering the narrow price differential. Only a small amount of thumbing was suf- ficient to separate the cover from the binding of this reviewer's paper bound copy.

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