Measuring discrimination in a register-based statistical system

Discrimination is up for discussion in Europe. Directives on discrimination on the grounds of gender have been in force since 1957 and in 2000 two new acts were introduced to protect people from discrimination on the grounds of racial and ethnic origin and on the grounds of religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation. Identifying the persons or groups who are exposed to discrimination is a basic requirement for combating discrimination. On the basis of register-based statistics, we are able to shed light on objective discrimination, i.e. the unjustifiable differences in outcomes, also in a longitudinal perspective. However, the existence of unjustifiable outcomes is not evidence that discrimination is taking place, but statistical analyses on outcomes can subsequently be used to conduct further studies, via surveys, as to why outcomes differ, as well as monitoring the level of differences in outcome nationally and internationally. In this paper, we will show some examples of statistics on access to the labor market for the elderly, for women of child-bearing age and for people of foreign origin and analyze the wage gap between men and women.