June 29, 2015

Stat of the Week Competition: June 27 – July 3 2015

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Each week, we would like to invite readers of Stats Chat to submit nominations for our Stat of the Week competition and be in with the chance to win an iTunes voucher.

Here’s how it works:

  • Anyone may add a comment on this post to nominate their Stat of the Week candidate before midday Friday July 3 2015.
  • Statistics can be bad, exemplary or fascinating.
  • The statistic must be in the NZ media during the period of June 27 – July 3 2015 inclusive.
  • Quote the statistic, when and where it was published and tell us why it should be our Stat of the Week.

Next Monday at midday we’ll announce the winner of this week’s Stat of the Week competition, and start a new one.

The fine print:

  • Judging will be conducted by the blog moderator in liaison with staff at the Department of Statistics, The University of Auckland.
  • The judges’ decision will be final.
  • The judges can decide not to award a prize if they do not believe a suitable statistic has been posted in the preceeding week.
  • Only the first nomination of any individual example of a statistic used in the NZ media will qualify for the competition.
  • Individual posts on Stats Chat are just the opinions of their authors, who can criticise anyone who they feel deserves it, but the Stat of the Week award involves the Department of Statistics more officially. For that reason, we will not award Stat of the Week for a statistic coming from anyone at the University of Auckland outside the Statistics department. You can still nominate and discuss them, but the nomination won’t be eligible for the prize.
  • Employees (other than student employees) of the Statistics department at the University of Auckland are not eligible to win.
  • The person posting the winning entry will receive a $20 iTunes voucher.
  • The blog moderator will contact the winner via their notified email address and advise the details of the $20 iTunes voucher to that same email address.
  • The competition will commence Monday 8 August 2011 and continue until cancellation is notified on the blog.
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Rachel Cunliffe is the co-director of CensusAtSchool and currently consults for the Department of Statistics. Her interests include statistical literacy, social media and blogging. See all posts by Rachel Cunliffe »

Nominations

  • avatar
    Eliza Bennett

    Statistic: “In an era when virtually everybody had children, in the mid-1950s, there was a childless rate of about 8 per cent. Even then there was some involuntary childlessness, sometimes leaving it too late, sometimes medical infertility,” he said. “If you assume that underlying propensity of childlessness is 7 or 8 per cent, then anything more than that can be construed as involuntary.”
    Source: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=11473098
    Date: 30 June 2015

    The basic calculations behind what is deemed as “involuntary” childlessness seems so basic as to be laughable. For one, never does this article enter into a discussion of the rising number of people who choose to be childless, life-long. In the quote above, Statistics NZ demographer Dr Robert Didham seems to discount this growing proportion of the population entirely, strongly implying that _any_ increase in childlessness rates compared to the 1950s is involuntary.

    9 years ago