Secondary Data

Secondary Data

1. Official

   • Usually collected by the government
   • Gathered through surveys
   • Most commonly available sources are those on a census

2. Unofficial

   • Quantatitive data
   • Non-Government sources
     • Employers, Professional bodies

3. Strengths

   • Cheap and easy
   • Usually extremely up-to-date
   • Reliable
   • Large Samples

4. Weaknesses

   • May not represent a complete picutre
   • Open to political abuse
   • Socially constructed statistics
   • Tell us little about meaning

5. Two types

6. Sociologists didn't collect data themselves