Qualitative and quantitative

Last week at work was mainly devoted to learning about and making my own attempts to put sociologic observations, at times lengthy, at times contradicting themselves, and always – hopelessly qualitative, into econometric form, elegant and quantitative to the bone.

Apparently, the competency of the organization I am working for is a social research: social implications of the issue, stakeholders involved, their stands and interactions, – all interlinked and analyzed in an elaborate qualitative manner. I am not sure the agency that commissioned the study in question was aware of this (yet, the point was clearly made in the proposal we submitted). Yet, an interesting turn in the project occurred when after revising the 5th version of the questionnaires we got the methodological guidelines from the funding agency which basically questioned the whole approach to the study as discussed initially. They wanted us not simply to have it more quantitative, but in fact – have it according to an economic model we are supposed to derive from god-knows-there. I do not question the descriptive value of mathematic modeling in social processes, yet I question the whole approach when social scientists are expected to come up with a formula. Wrong place to inquire, is it not?

So, the whole mental capacity of the department (which just shrank twice last week with two people being on leave) was mobilized for the study of the existing models that might be relevant for the project in question. I spent a week on learning about various indices of economic and human development as well as gender empowerment. The major stand emerged. It is thrilling to think that the fruits of the complex development process can be captured by some sort of statistical indicators, weighted and represented as a number or as a rank in case of the cross-country comparison. Yet, when applying any sort of mathematic formula to describe social reality and making hundreds of assumptions to fit at times indescribable social phenomenon into a set of indices how socially valuable the outcome of the exercise can be. I’ve got two examples to illustrate the point.


Awkward example: In particular, my boss got to know about so called gender equilibrium model and downloaded respective readings. The article with a host of mathematical formulae had a very horrifying appearance and hardly invited to reading. I recalled similar animals I had to tame during my supply chain management course at NHH. At that time I learn that you can most probably grasp the essence of such an article from the abstract, or at worst from the introduction and conclusion of the same. Unless you are able to appreciate the mathematical effort of the authors, in which case you have to go through the whole piece… So, I applied the same wisdom to the article on gender equilibrium model. In fact, I invited Kate to share the pleasure of going through such a dignified distinctive piece of writing – together with her it was easier to face the experience. So, I started with the abstract….

We study a general equilibrium model with endogenous human capital formation in which ex ante identical groups may be treated asymmetrically in equilibrium. The interaction between an informational externality and general equilibrium effects creates incentives for groups to specialize.

Fairly impressed, I proceeded to the summary

The dominant group is better off in equilibria with discrimination, which we view as an appealing property since this can rationalize why active measures are taken to institutionalize discrimination.

So, essentially 30-page piece of pathetic writing and hard-core mathematical exercise established something that has been comprising common knowledge of social science for decades: gender discrimination persists as it is beneficial for the dominant (male) group of the society. I wonder why the authors so genuinely interested in the issue have never bother to check the immense treasuries of social science literature on the same, as becomes evident from their bibliography.


Elegant example: The other day I was going through a study by the Ministry of Economic Development in New Zealand, which was benchmarking economic development of the country against its counterparts in OECD. The comparison was made along with eights groups of indicators describing various components of economic progress. No weights were given to any of the parameters to arrive to any sort of ultimate ranking, yet a prudent analysis of each parameter and its component was done instead. I was amazed at times by the elegant solutions drawn to quantify some of the parameters. For example, level of development of financial market was described in terms of the volume of the stock market, size of the banking system and the dynamics of the interest rate; innovation and technology was assessed through a number of parameters including technology adoption, quantified as amount of broadband subscribers. I thought of it as a very nice (and justified) way to carry out a comprehensive analysis of at times very “soft” indicators and grasp the whole picture without simply assigning values to its various parts.

Dilemma of quantitative versus qualitative, economics versus social science is ever-persisting. By no means I wish to establish superiority of either, but rather to note that both are bounded to be used within their limits. So, assigning a numerical value to a social phenomena., while being a thrilling mental exercise, should be socially worthwhile. Yet, social scientists should not be scared by impressive mathematical formulas and abundance of numbers as they can read those capitalizing on their expertise. Moreover, exactly by the virtue of the limitations of both - quantitative and qualitative, economics and social science – they are doomed to interact and mutually enrich instead of keeping the respectful distance and giving arrogant looks to each other. The point was nicely illustrated at one occasion.

On Thursday I got to attend a seminar on Unorganized Sector in India. It was absolutely eye opening to observe a purely economic discussion – the realization came: I got quite unused to this sort of disputes. A bunch of labor economists were discussing the jobless growth and low labor elasticity to the growth of GDP in India, different yet converging situations in both organized and unorganized sector in terms of job insecurity. The language of statistics and the discussion on very much methodological issues made me realize my economic origins. Being a business student, yet sufficiently exposed to the economics in its various manifestations I am supposed to think and elaborate along with the similar lines. Yet, I do not… In course of the whole discussion I could not get rid of the idea that social dimension is outrageously missing in the dispute, yet I could not point out in what way. My hesitations were clarified by a professor from Department of Sociology, JNU, who chaired the session on the vulnerability of the workers in unorganized sector. He started with the confession that as a student of a social science he was initially afraid to miss out at the economic discussion. Yet, he had understood everything brought up so far and he said the in fact by applying the perspective of the social science one can deepen the present discussion. And then he said the words.. those I’ve been so desperately looking for but could not easily find by the virtue of me still being a novel in the area of social science. He pointed out that vulnerability had been discussed at the seminar as a somewhat personal characteristic. Yet, vulnerability is embedded in specific social identities one associates with. People are not vulnerable as individuals, but rather as part of social groups – e.g, ethnic minorities, scheduled cast, and women – which are prone to vulnerability. This is by looking at the power relations in the society one can understand why vulnerability is an inherent societal phenomenon maintained by the dominant group of the society. Despite the seemingly pathetic wording the implications are straight-forward: it is by understanding what pulls workers in unorganized labor one can address their vulnerability and eventually make a difference.


The other day I was explaining to Kate the concert that prof. Kaufman and myself are going to coin in the prospective article. The concept is a basic one, yet strangely absent in the management and psychological literature. Kate replied that for her as coming from social anthropology the concept is pretty straightforward. This is such a pitiful, yet typical pitfall of science when there is very little interaction between various subject domains and what has been established long time back in one just starts coming up in another. I feel very happy with the very thought that my economic and business education gets so enriched with the interest in physiology and sociology and interaction with people from the respective fields. Establishing interdisciplinary linkages, cross-checking the concepts and working out the vocabulary that could be shared by scholars from different domains – as an exciting arena. And I could not wished anything else, as anything else is already farsightedly included.