Cultural Diversity Barometer

In this page:

• Why was the practice needed?
• How was it implemented?
• Outputs
• Key success factors
• Technical information
• Contacts

Why was the practice needed?

In the letter to the parliament regarding the introduction of the practice, the Minister for Social Affairs and Employment refers to the lack of available data, which forms an obstacle to establishing effective cultural diversity policies for employers.

The Social and Economic Council of the Netherlands (SER) is the most important advisory body for government and parliament in which employers, employees and independent experts work together to reach an agreement on key social and economic issues. In the autumn of 2019, the SER published an advisory report on the lack of diversity at the top of firms and organisations. The government adopted this advice. One of the recommendations was the rollout of a cultural diversity barometer to improve the measurement of cultural diversity among the workforces. The Cultural Diversity Barometer is part of the action plan ‘Verdere Integratie op de Arbeidsmarkt (VIA)’ (Additional integration in the labour market) of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment. The task of collecting data on cultural diversity fits within the legal functions of CBS, the Dutch statistical office.

Organisations can use these figures as a benchmark for their own cultural diversity programmes. Furthermore, on a voluntary basis, organisations with 250 or more employees can ask CBS to take their barometer readings.

How was it implemented?

A pilot among eight public and private organisations has been positively evaluated.

At the request of the Minister for Social Affairs and Employment, CBS has created an online dashboard with figures on cultural diversity in the labour market. The online dashboard provides the following regional and national figures:

• migration background distribution of the active labour force (by gender and age)
• migration background distribution of employees (by subdivisions of labour market regions, labour market sector, firm size, salary level and type of occupation)
• number of registered unemployed people by migration background (and subdivisions by labour market regions, type of occupation, and educational level)
• outflow of student graduates by migration background at secondary level (and subdivisions by labour market regions, type of education or training, and type of occupation)
• outflow of student graduates by migration background at tertiary level (and subdivisions by labour market regions and type of education, with separate figures for international students).

Organisations have two options for taking their own barometer readings.

1. Migration background for the organisation as a whole. An organisation shares data on the payroll tax identification numbers of its workforce with CBS. There is no need for the organisation to collect any additional data about its workforce and no need to share particular personal information about its workforce. Using these payroll tax identification numbers, CBS selects the organisation’s employees.
2. Migration background for subgroups within the organisation, e.g. function or department. The organisation shares personal data about its employees with CBS, including identification characteristics such as birth date, gender, address, and optional subgroup characteristics such as the employees’ function or the organisation department where the employee works.

CBS matches these data about the organisation’s employees with information on migration background as registered in the Key Register of Persons (Basisregistratie Personen). CBS analyses these data using pseudonyms and produces results only at aggregate level. These results can subsequently be used for comparing the organisation’s cultural diversity with regional and national figures. As the privacy of individual employees is important, the following practice was developed. There is no need to collect and present data regarding individual employees. Data are safely shared. Employees’ data shared for the barometer are used only for the barometer, and deleted shortly after publication. CBS replaces directly identifying characteristics with a pseudonym as soon as possible. All outputs are aggregated at group level. If individual employees are traceable in a subgroup of the workforce, the Statistical Office does not publish these data. However, the availability of high-quality register data is needed. The safety of transfers of data between an organisation and the institution that analyses the data is also needed. Only data at the aggregate level are made publicly available: no outputs are traceable to individuals.

Outputs

An online dashboard with regularly updated figures on cultural diversity at the labour market can be applied as a benchmark. The practice would be transferable to other Member States or equality data operators.

Furthermore, organisations can ask CBS to provide barometer readings of them. Since 1 July 2020, CBS has offered the opportunity for organisations to request a cultural diversity barometer reading. Currently (1 February 2022) over 200 organisations have shown interest and over 45 organisations’ specific barometer readings have been published on the website of CBS.

• Website of the practice with general information (in Dutch)
• Website of the dashboard with data (in Dutch)
• Website of the implementing institution

Key success factors

• It provides a solution to the lack of available data on cultural diversity that can help to establish effective cultural diversity policies for employers.
• The Cultural Diversity Barometer can help to improve the measurement of cultural diversity among the workforce and improve the labour market position of migrants. The government provides financial support.
• Little effort is required from organisations that want to take cultural diversity barometer readings of their own workforces.
• All data are safely shared, and analysed using pseudonyms, and output is aggregated at group level.

Technical information

• Data sources covered: Administrative data; Diversity monitoring
• Areas of life covered: Employment
• Target audience: Primarily: firms and organisations with 250 or more employees that want to monitor the cultural diversity of their workforce;
  Furthermore, in general: public administrations, equality bodies, civil society organisations, media, general population;
  Target groups: Migrants
• Duration: Starting date 1 July 2020
  Ongoing. Figures from CBS are regularly updated. Participating organisations can decide for themselves how often they want a new update of the measurement of cultural diversity of their workforces
• Geographical scope: National figures are available as well as figures by region (12 provinces, 34 labour market regions), labour market sector, firm size, salary, occupation and type of education
• Leading institution: Statistics Netherlands; Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek (CBS)
• Other organisations involved/consulted: The practice has been implemented on behalf of the Minister for Social Affairs and Employment. The SER provides information to organisations that want to take their own barometer readings.
  A pilot has been conducted with eight private and public organisations.
• Financial & human resources: Budget: Unknown; Source of the budget: State budget and private budget from organisations that take a barometer reading; Staff: Unknown

Contacts

barometer.culturele.diversiteit@cbs.nl

Tel.: +31 (0)88 570 70 70