SESSIONSSPEAKERSWORKSHOPSFAQCONTACT
CHOOSE LANGUAGE

Community and Family Cohesion Through Modern Data

Five ISI Invited Paper Session Abstracts

Pillar: Harnessing Data for Different Population Groups

These five ISI sessions collectively address the Forum’s objective of fostering dialogue on the importance of data in decision-making, strengthening family and community cohesion across diverse population groups through evidence-based insights and research-driven practice.

20–21 May 2026 – Sharjah, United Arab Emirates
MEASURING WOMEN'S UNPAID CARE WORK AND INFORMAL EMPLOYMENT FOR GENDER-RESPONSIVE POLICIES
Accurate measurement of women's economic contributions, including unpaid care work and informal employment, is essential for designing policies that support family economic stability and gender equality. This session focuses on statistical innovations in time-use surveys, labour force measurement, and economic accounting that reveal the full scope of women's roles within families and communities. The session opens with methodological advances in time-use data collection, demonstrating how light time-use surveys and mobile survey applications reduce respondent burden while enabling more frequent measurement of women's paid and unpaid work. These innovations are particularly critical in developing regions where traditional diary-based surveys face resource and literacy constraints. The presentation will showcase how improved time-use data inform policies on childcare provision, parental leave, and elderly care support, while also feeding into satellite accounts that value women's unpaid household service work within national economic frameworks. The second contribution addresses the persistent challenge of capturing women's informal economic activities and entrepreneurship. Drawing on global experiences and ILO methodological frameworks, this presentation will examine techniques for measuring women's participation in the informal economy, including home-based work, street vending, and digital platform work. Special attention will be given to the measurement challenges posed by the intersection of informal employment and care responsibilities, which disproportionately affect women's economic participation. The session concludes with a regional analysis examining the distinctive patterns and measurement challenges of women's work in the Middle East and North Africa. This contribution will explore the paradoxes of women's economic participation in MENA countries, where despite rising education levels, women's labour force participation remains among the lowest globally. The presentation will address how measurement systems often fail to capture women's home-based production, agricultural work, and family enterprise contributions, leading to an underestimation of women's economic roles. Drawing on evidence from across the region, this contribution will highlight how improved statistics can inform context-appropriate policies that expand women's economic opportunities while respecting cultural contexts and family structures. Together, these contributions demonstrate how methodological innovations in measuring women's unpaid care work and informal employment can transform our understanding of women's economic contributions and enable more effective, gender-responsive policies that support both family well-being and economic development.
Speaker(s): Moderator: Ms. Conchita Kleijweg

1. "Time-Use Surveys for Producing Affordable, Regular Data on Women's Paid and Unpaid Work"
Potential Speaker: Deputy Director, Statistics Division, UN Women

2. "Measuring Women's Informal Employment and Entrepreneurship: Methodological Challenges and Solutions"
Potential Speaker: Mr. Kieran Walsh, International Labour Organization (ILO)

3. "Women and Work in the MENA Region: Puzzles, Paradoxes and Policy Challenges"
Potential Speaker: Ms. Naila Kabeer, Emeritus Professor of Gender and Development, London School of Economics Time: 1 hour
STATISTICAL SYSTEMS FOR HEALTHY AGEING: MEASURING ELDERLY WELL-BEING, CARE NEEDS, AND SOCIAL PARTICIPATION
Ageing populations require comprehensive statistical systems that capture elderly individuals' health status, care arrangements, economic security, and social integration within families and communities. This session presents statistical frameworks and data collection methodologies specifically designed to understand elderly populations' needs and contributions to family and community cohesion, including the quality-of-life index. Presentations will cover survey instruments adapted for elderly respondents, including proxy reporting and cognitive assessment protocols that ensure data quality while respecting the specific needs of older populations. The session will address methods for measuring informal care provision and receipt within family networks, recognising that intergenerational care arrangements are central to family cohesion. Speakers will demonstrate techniques for capturing elderly poverty using multidimensional approaches that extend beyond income to encompass health, housing, and social dimensions. The session will showcase statistical approaches to measuring social isolation, digital exclusion, and civic participation among older adults, all critical indicators of elderly well-being. A presentation will show methods to integrate health administrative data, pension records, and social service data to create comprehensive elderly well-being indicators for the MENA region that can inform long-term care policies, pension adequacy assessments, and age-friendly community programs.
Speaker(s): Moderator: Mr. Fabrizio Ruggeri 1. "Measuring Informal Care Within Families: Statistical Frameworks for Capturing Caregiving Intensity and Economic Value" Potential Speaker: Ms. Joann Chipperfield, Health Division, OECD 2. "Multidimensional Elderly Poverty Measurement: Beyond Income to Capture Health, Housing, and Social Dimensions" Potential Speaker: Mr. Pedro Conceição, Director, Human Development Report Office, UNDP 3. "Integrating Administrative Health and Social Care Data: Creating Comprehensive Ageing Indicators for Policy in the MENA region" Potential Speaker: Ms. Shereen Hussein, Professor of Health and Social Care Policy at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Director of the MENARAH Network (Middle East and North Africa Research on Ageing and Healthy Ageing) Time:1 hour
STATISTICAL APPROACHES TO UNDERSTANDING AND SUPPORTING YOUTH IN EDUCATION-TO-WORK TRANSITION
Youth face unprecedented challenges in education-to-work transitions, requiring sophisticated statistical systems that track their pathways and inform evidence-based interventions. This session presents comprehensive statistical frameworks for measuring youth skills, education outcomes, labour market integration, and social participation. Presentations will demonstrate longitudinal survey designs that follow youth cohorts through education and early career stages, methods for measuring casual jobs (e.g. gig workers), skills mismatches and future-ready competencies beyond formal qualifications, and techniques for capturing NEET (Not in Education, Employment, or Training) youth, including vulnerable populations. The session will address approaches for measuring youth digital inclusion and technology access, recognising the critical role of digital competencies in modern labour markets. Special attention will be given to integrating new data sources for education systems, employment services, and social protection programs to create comprehensive youth transition indicators. Speakers will showcase how National Statistical Offices are leveraging real-time data integration, particularly experiences from MENA countries, to monitor youth labour market dynamics and enable timely policy responses. The session will also address the challenge of translating complex youth labour market statistics into accessible formats for young people themselves, youth organizations, and education policymakers, ensuring that statistical insights effectively inform programs for youth employment, skills development, and social integration that reduce intergenerational economic pressures on families.
Speaker(s):Moderator: Mr. Pietro Gennari 1. "Longitudinal Youth Cohort Studies: Statistical Design and Analytical Frameworks for Tracking Education-to-Work Transitions" Potential Speaker: Professor Ms. Emla Fitzsimons, Director, Centre for Longitudinal Studies, University College London 2. "Measuring Skills for the Future: Beyond Traditional Education Indicators to Capture Digital and Soft Skills" Potential Speaker: Mr. Andreas Schleicher, Director for Education and Skills, OECD 3. "Integration of New Data Sources for Real-Time Youth Labour Market Monitoring: Experiences from the MENA Countries" Potential Speaker: Mr. Dr Tarik Alami, Cluster Leader, Statistics, Information Society, and Technology — UN ESCWA Time:1 hour
Child-Centred Statistics: Measuring Child Development, Protection, and Family Environment
Children's well-being and development within family contexts require specialised statistical approaches that respect ethical considerations while producing actionable evidence for child-focused policies. This session presents statistical methodologies for measuring child outcomes across health, education, protection, and family environment domains. Presentations will cover Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) innovations and adaptations for national contexts, including recent enhancements for measuring early childhood development and positive parenting practices. The session will address statistical approaches to measuring child poverty that account for children's specific needs and deprivations within households, recognising that standard household poverty measures may not adequately capture child-specific vulnerabilities. Speakers will present methods for capturing adverse childhood experiences and child protection indicators while maintaining privacy and safety, addressing one of the most challenging areas of child statistics. The session will showcase techniques for measuring early childhood development and school readiness, critical predictors of long-term well-being and family prosperity. Presenters will address the unique methodological challenges of child statistics, including ethical data collection protocols, age-appropriate survey instruments, parental consent procedures, and linking child-level data across education, health, and social service systems. The session will also examine how community-generated data on child-friendly environments and school-based monitoring systems can complement official statistics to create more comprehensive pictures of child well-being and enable local-level interventions that strengthen family capacity to support children's development.
Speaker(s): Moderator: Mr. Alper Gucumengil 1. "Measuring Early Childhood Development and Positive Parenting Practices: MICS Survey Innovations" Potential Speaker: Mr. Andrea Rossi, Chief, Data Collection Unit and Global MICS Coordinator, UNICEF 2. "Child Poverty Measurement: Statistical Frameworks That Capture Children's Specific Deprivations Within Households" Potential Speaker: Ms. Brenda Jones Harden, Professor of Child and Family Welfare, Columbia University School of Social Work 3. "Ethical and Statistical Challenges in Measuring Child Protection Indicators: Violence, Abuse, and Neglect in the MENA Region" Potential Speaker: Mr. Leonardo Menchini, Regional Advisor on Monitoring Child Rights, UNICEF MENARO Time:1 hour