Who is the typical inhabitant of the Greater Rosario Metropolitan Area according to the EPH: employment, housing, household and education. Social indicators of Greater Rosario for the fourth quarter of 2014. June 2015 report.
Today, we are pleased to present our first report on current events and social indicators. As with our previous reports, this one is organized into four sections, identifiable by the icons shown below.
Las cuatro secciones del informe.What is a Rosario native like?
Rosario is one of those cities that proudly displays its origins. It's rare for someone from Rosario to define themselves—or their fellow citizens—as being from Santa Fe. In fact, the reference to the province seems odd. According to our common understanding, a Rosario native is someone who rarely pronounces all their ' s' sounds in a sentence, is a leper or a scoundrel, and a whole host of other stereotypes we've created to recognize ourselves.
Stereotypes give us the advantage of quickly classifying incoming information without questioning its veracity. However, this ease can sometimes become a disadvantage when we act on these generalizations.
A stereotype functions as a heuristic, when an individual evaluates a specific attribute of a depicted object, replacing it with some other property of said object that is easier for him or her to interpret.
Thus, the costs that are avoided by responding quickly to the situation or problem that arises reappear in the form of serious and systematic errors, which in theory are called biases.
Rosario within the Greater Rosario Metropolitan Area
In our first report on social indicators, we are far from answering that question. One difficulty is that we only have information for a range of localities, not just the city of Rosario.
Indeed, the information provided by the Permanent Household Survey ( EPH ), which informs this report, refers to the population living in the Greater Rosario Agglomeration ( AGR ).
According to the 2010 Census, the estimated population for the AGR is as shown in the following table:
Población del Aglomerado Gran Rosario por localidad, Censo 2010.Although the percentage of the population for the city of Rosario is 76,52%, after five years we cannot say with certainty that this proportion will be maintained and, above all, it cannot be stated that the socio-economic characteristics of the remaining localities are similar to those of the population of Rosario, only on a smaller scale.
Thus, the initial question remains elusive. Based on available statistical information, the best answer we can give is in reference to the typical population of the urban area. Let's give it a name, let's call it " Agerosarinos ," and see what characteristics it has.
What is an Agerosarian like, then?
In terms of gender , she is probably female ; however, she could very well have been male. She is between 25 and 45 years old , and although she is not the head of household, she has a job . Perhaps that is the main reason why she has some kind of health insurance coverage . It is also likely that she has spent most of her life in the area, or even in the town where she was born. In fact, within the family structure, she fulfills the role of daughter.
Regarding their quality of life, measured by the type of housing and the services available to them, they most likely live in a house that is connected to the running water network , the natural gas network , and the sewer network.
Our typical Agerosarina attended public schools and managed to complete high school , though she narrowly missed finishing. That's a fact that should concern the rest of us Agerosarinas.
Cuadro resumen de los indicadores del IV trimestre de 2014.What is observed regarding the educational level of our population?
There is an idea ingrained in our society—one that also happens to be a hopeful one—that the higher a person's level of education , the higher their future income will be.
In the last slides of the report, referring to the level of education of the inhabitants of the AGR, attention is drawn to some points that are currently open to debate.
Our study shows a clear correlation between education and income level. However, it's important to note that this finding does not imply causality in any way . In other words, the fact that two phenomena develop in parallel does not mean that one causes the other.
Taking education level and income level as variables, it's quite possible that there's a third cause explaining both. For example , it could be argued that intelligent individuals (with all the difficulties involved in using and applying this term) manage to achieve high levels of education, as well as high income levels.
But another hypothesis could also be used to explain the same thing. According to this hypothesis, individuals from wealthy households achieve higher future income levels due to the social capital that comes with belonging to that family. This also makes it easier for them to complete their university studies.
What the economics of education studies
In this regard, there is a vast body of literature that attempts to identify the various factors that explain individuals' educational performance . This work could be grouped under the heading of the economics of education . Fortunately, research with data from our country already exists.
To give an example, in a study based on the 2009 PISA tests, by Marchionni, Pinto and Vazquez (2013), the authors argue that “inequality in (educational) performance is fundamentally explained by the unequal socioeconomic composition of students between schools.”
Ultimately, the key point is that—as a society—we still have much to learn about the factors that explain higher levels of education and the impact this improvement has on other variables. The data presented in our report is just the first step toward understanding the issue.
From the Observatory, we hope that in future work we can go further. For now, we invite you to read the AGR's Social Indicators Report. It will undoubtedly give you a general overview of this and other issues in our region.
Open access, for use and citation
The report is available freely and without charge, under a Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0):
- 📄 Full report (PDF): Download the report
- 🗄️ UNR Hypermedia Repository (RepHip): https://hdl.handle.net/2133/17508
- 📚 More reports from the Observatory: Index of Reports
Informe sobre Indicadores Sociales | IV Trimestre de 2014. Informes del Observatorio UNR N.º 7 — Serie Informes de Coyuntura N.º 5, junio de 2015. ISSN 2683-9067 / 2683-9075. Autores: Germán A. Tessmer y Norberto Martín.