Appropriateness of Aggregated Data on a Diverse Population

Pak See Ip

ASA 2-A02

Blog 1

            While statistics may provide information about a particular population or a variable of interest, the resulting data may be aggregated and therefore fail to show the diversity within a group. In “Profile America Fact for Features: Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders Census 2010”, the United States Census Bureau listed the demographic information for Asian Americans collected from the 2010 Census and 2007 Survey of Business Owners. After reading the report, I was surprised to find that the statistics were not broken down into different ethnicities, despite the high level of diversity within the Asian American population. Instead, Asian Americans were used to compare with other minorities such as African Americans and Latin Americans. The relatively low poverty rate and high percentage of those who received higher education may enhance the idea of model minority and create an illusion that all Asian Americans are privileged and highly educated. However, the different struggles and challenges that different ethnic groups had to face may be ignored due to the generalizations that were drawn from aggregated data.

Under what circumstances are aggregated data acceptable? Is it appropriate to use and analyze aggregated data when one is studying a diverse population such as Asian Americans?



Stravato, Michael. “What is the Asian-American Identity?” Photograph. The New York Times. 1 November 2012. Web. 29 September 2015.