Troubled families?

Summary

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More or Less – "Troubled Families?"

Date: August 22, 2014
Host: Tim Harford (BBC Radio 4)
Overview
This episode of "More or Less" explores and critically examines some of the most prominent statistics circulating in political debate, news reports, and everyday conversation. Tim Harford and guests dissect the numbers behind the UK’s Troubled Families Programme, CEO pay ratios, civilian casualties in Gaza, trends in marriage and divorce, and creative ideas for making statistics more accessible. The key aim is to clarify, challenge, and demystify the numbers shaping public understanding and policy.

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1. The "Troubled Families" Programme

(Starts ~00:32)

Background and Origins

• Context: Following the 2011 English riots, Prime Minister David Cameron cited 120,000 "problem families" as needing intervention—a figure underpinning the government’s Troubled Families Programme.
• Origin of Number: Professor Ruth Levitas explains that the number comes from secondary analysis of the 2004 Families and Children Study, identifying 2% of families as "severely multiply disadvantaged" based on 5 out of 7 criteria—none of which concerned crime or antisocial behavior.
  • Quote (01:40):

  “The 120,000 actually comes from a piece of secondary analysis of the 2004 Families and Children Study… 2% of those families surveyed had five or more of those seven characteristics and were therefore severely multiply disadvantaged.” – Prof. Ruth Levitas

Misrepresentation in Policy and Media

• Slippage in Narrative: The list describes deprivation, not delinquency or problematic conduct. The media and politicians conflated "families with troubles" with "troublemaking families."
  • Quote (03:05):

  “There is no evidence that the group of families… are actually trouble making families. But the whole discourse… is making a slippage from families that undoubtedly have troubles to being troublemakers.” – Prof. Ruth Levitas

"Turning Around" Troubled Families

• Measuring Success: Chris Cook (Newsnight public policy editor) explains that "turning around" a family can mean meeting certain criteria:
  • 4,500 out of 53,000 so-called successes involved a parent entering full-time work.
  • The remainder required improvements like fewer school suspensions, reduced truancy, and less antisocial behavior—but families can remain poor and still be marked as "turned around."
  • Critique: A family may still have significant issues, but with slight statistical improvements, they’re counted as successes.
  • Quotes:
    • (04:15)

    “If an adult finds full time work, then they've been turned around...No matter what other problems there are.” – Tim Harford & Chris Cook

    • (04:59)

    “It's possible to have a family where the adults are continuing to be out of work, where the children are missing a day of school every fortnight, where they are continuing to offend less than before, but...the government will say, this is a family who has been turned around.” – Chris Cook

Statistical Flaws and Policy Rigidity

• Regression to the Mean: Some improvements may simply be statistical fluctuations, not genuine change.
• Permanence of "Turned Around": Once a family is "turned around," they can't re-enter the program—even if their situation deteriorates.
• Expansion to 400,000 More Families: The government plans to extend the program to another 400,000 families, leading to the Sunday Times headline "half a million problem families".
  • However, the method for determining this new number is undisclosed.
  • Quote (07:30):

  “The Government's taken a really clever attitude...they've dealt with [statistical criticism] by just not telling us how they've come up with this 400,000 figure.” – Chris Cook

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2. CEO Pay Ratios

(Starts ~08:02)

Sensational Figures and a Calculation Error

• Claim: CEOs of FTSE 100 firms were said to earn 143 times the average employee pay; at Randgold Resources, the CEO-to-worker pay ratio hit nearly 1,500:1.
• Debunking: The High Pay Centre erred by including 12,000 contractors in the denominator but not in the wage total—this underestimated average staff salaries and exaggerated the ratios.
  • After correction, Randgold’s average annual staff pay is £19,000, not £3,000; the CEO pays ratio is much lower.
  • Quote (09:41):

  “The High Pay Centre got their calculations completely wrong and when the Guardian got wind of that, they took their article down.” – Ben Carter

Context Matters

• Many employees at global companies like Randgold work in countries with low average wages, so pay gaps reflect global inequalities, not just UK disparities.
• Also, many UK high-street workers (e.g. Marks & Spencer) work part-time, further lowering average pay figures in these reports.
  • Quote (11:57):

  “So the phrase comparing apples to oranges does come to mind.” – Tim Harford

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3. Gaza Conflict: Counting the Dead

(Starts ~12:23)

UN Casualty Estimates and Gender Imbalance

• UN Report (July 7–Aug 20, 2014): 1,999 deaths in Gaza (70% civilians), with a high ratio of men among civilian casualties (approx. 3:1 male to female).
• Media Controversy: A BBC News article implied that attacks may not be indiscriminate because of the gender ratio, leading to public criticism and revision of the article.
  • Quote (13:57):

  “It might be worth spelling out why the comment invites people to conclude that if Israeli attacks were indiscriminate, we wouldn't see far more men than women killed. We'd see roughly equal numbers.” – Tim Harford

Why Are More Men Killed?

• Behavioural Explanations:
  • Men are more likely to be outdoors, running errands, or suspected as combatants—making them more vulnerable.
  • Certain public spaces (like cafes during World Cup matches) are male-dominated at certain times.
  • Quote (15:22):

  “Men will generally be more exposed...They will go back and to check on their homes. They will go out to get food and water, whereas children and women will usually be more sheltered and protected.” – Matthias Benke, UN

How Are Casualty Numbers Compiled?

• Sources and Verification: Combining data from Palestinian, Israeli, and international organizations, cross-checking, and sometimes exceeding official Ministry of Health numbers.
  • Quote (17:20):

  “We compile the information in a database that we run, which we also cross check and verify with data provided in the public domain...So it's quite a comprehensive process.” – Matthias Benke

Challenges and Limitations

• Fog of War: Danger and chaos in conflict zones make rigorous accounting difficult.

  • Quote (19:19):

  “The confusion and the general intensity of the numbers are, I would say, the number one difficulty in analyzing the data.” – Hagai Elad, B’Tselem

• Identifying Combatants: It's often hard to distinguish civilian from fighter due to social/psychological pressures and reporting bias.

  • Quote (20:09):

  “Sometimes there's a desire, it's more courageous for someone to have died as a combatant for some families. In other cases, there's a desire to show that the percentage of non combatants that died is high.” – Hagai Elad

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4. Marriage and Divorce Odds

(Starts ~21:17)

Divorce Statistics

• ONS Data: 42% of marriages in England and Wales end in divorce; early years are low-risk, but risk climbs between the 4th and 8th anniversaries (over 3% risk per year).
• Age Matters:
  • If a bride marries under 20, 53% chance of divorce by year 30; if between 30–34, only 23%.
  • Quote (22:26):

  “The older people are when they get married, the less likely they are to get divorced.” – Keith Moore

Cohabitation’s Effect

• Cohabiting before marriage correlates with a lower divorce risk—partners have a deeper familiarity.
  • Quote (23:13):

  “You kind of know who your partner is, you know a bit about them, you've lived with them, you’ve seen the good times and you’ve seen the bad times…” – Chris Sherwood, Relate

Recipe for Success

• Survey of 5,000 people identified commitment, honesty, and communication as vital for relationship success.
  • Quote (23:39):

  “Honesty is really important in the first five years of your relationship. And actually commitment gets more important.” – Chris Sherwood

Statistical Cautions

• Correlations (age, cohabitation) may not be causal—other factors (income, education, religion) could be at play.
  • Quote (24:01):

  “Is all this advice based on sound statistical research?… Are they just proxies for something else…?” – Tim Harford

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5. How to Make Statistics Sound Good on Radio

(Starts ~25:24)

Presenting Data Creatively

• Listener Andrew Greystone suggests using sound effects (volume, pace, pitch) to represent statistical trends on radio, not just numbers.
  • Example: Rising/falling tones to represent upward/downward trends, increasing volume for population growth, rapid sounds for spikes in statistics.
  • Memorable Audio Moment (27:14):

  Andrew and Tim simulate two different statistical trends in unison using vocal sounds.
  Andrew: “Do you want to be the rise or the fall?”
  Tim: “I'll be the rise.”
  [They perform the sound demonstration together.]

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On problem families (01:40):

  “2% of those families surveyed had five or more of those seven characteristics and were therefore severely multiply disadvantaged.” – Prof. Ruth Levitas

• On confusing 'troubled' with 'troublemakers' (03:05):

  “The whole discourse...is making a slippage from families that undoubtedly have troubles to being troublemakers.” – Prof. Ruth Levitas

• On CEO pay ratio error (09:41):

  “The High Pay Centre got their calculations completely wrong.” – Ben Carter

• On war casualty patterns (15:22):

  "Men will generally be more exposed...They will go out to get food and water, whereas children and women will usually be more sheltered and protected." – Matthias Benke

• On divorce risk with age (22:26):

  "The older people are when they get married, the less likely they are to get divorced." – Keith Moore

• On communication in relationships (23:39):

  “Honesty is really important in the first five years...commitment gets more important.” – Chris Sherwood

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Troubled Families Programme & Numbers Debunked: 00:32–08:00
• CEO Pay Multiples and Calculation Error: 08:02–12:23
• Gaza Death Toll & Counting Difficulties: 12:23–21:17
• Marriage/Divorce Stats & Risk Factors: 21:17–25:24
• Creative Audio Data Presentation: 25:24–27:21

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Tone & Style

• The episode’s tone is witty, inquisitive, and grounded in critical thinking.
• Tim Harford and his guests balance skepticism with clarity and good-natured humor.

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Summary Takeaways

• Many headline statistics, especially those used to justify policy, are misleading or based on misinterpretation.
• Nuanced, contextual understanding is crucial—whether analyzing poverty, pay, war, or personal relationships.
• Making numbers accessible—and sometimes fun—can illuminate, not obscure, what’s really going on.

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Transcript

[Tim Harford]

Thank you for downloading More or Less from BBC Radio 4. Here's Tim Harford.

Hello and welcome to More or Less, the programme which eagerly climbs a mountain of dodgy numbers for the reward of breathtaking views of statistical beauty. This week, further adventures in the audio presentation of Data gr. We'll also be covering Chief Executive Pay the body count in Gaza, marriage and divorce. But first, this headline from the Sunday

Times revealed half a million problem families.

This takes me back to 2012. The government had decided to establish the Troubled Families Programme in response to the riots that plagued English cities in 2011. David Cameron had declared that 120,000 problem families needed attention from their local authorities.

[Ben Carter]

Let me be clear what I mean by this phrase.

[Tim Harford]

Officialdom might call them families with multiple disadvantages.

[Ben Carter]

Some in the press might call them neighbors from hell.

[Tim Harford]

Whatever you call them, I think we've all known for years that a relatively small number of families are the source of a large proportion of problems in our society. Now, the way the Prime Minister puts it, these really aren't the sort of people you'd want moving in next door. But we pulled this number apart two years ago with a little help from Professor Ruth Levitas from Bristol University, who was working on a study of poverty and exclusion in the UK. She had been looking at who these 120,000 families actually were.

[Professor Ruth Levitas]

The 120,000 actually comes from a piece of secondary analysis of the 2004 Families and Children study. And in that study they found that 2% of the families had five of a list of seven characteristics. No parent in the family is in work, the family lives in overcrowded housing, no parent has any qualifications, the mother has mental health problems. At least one parent has long standing limiting illness, disability or infirmity. The family has a low income below 60% of median income, and the family cannot afford a number of food and clothing items, which is a measure of material deprivation. So what we have is a study in which 2% of those families surveyed had five or more of those seven characteristics and were therefore severely multiply disadvantaged.

[Tim Harford]

In other words, not one of the seven criteria is about crime or antisocial behaviour. All of them are about deprivation. So is it reasonable, I asked Professor Levitas to read off that list of seven deprivations and conclude that these are families that caused trouble?

[Professor Ruth Levitas]

Absolutely not. There is no evidence that the group of families that identified in the Family and Children's Survey are actually trouble making families. But the whole discourse that is being created around this is making a slippage from families that undoubtedly have troubles to being troublemakers.

[Tim Harford]

Professor Ruth Levitas telling me this number was nonsense in 2012. Well, we'll come to the half a million problem families soon. But first, the 120,000 figure has stayed firmly at the heart of government policy. So how's it all working out? I asked Newsnight's public policy editor, Chris Cook.

[Chris Cook]

Well, there's good news, according to the government, that they managed to have turned around about 53,000 of them. They say no one could think that's bad.

[Tim Harford]

Turned around? What do they mean?

[Chris Cook]

So the government says that there have been about 53,000 families who have been turned around. Of these, only about four and a half thousand have been turned around because those families have had an adult who's got full time work. The remainder have been.

[Tim Harford]

So if an adult finds full time work, then they've been turned around.

[Chris Cook]

They're turned around.

[Tim Harford]

No matter what other problems there are in the household. A parent has found work, the family has been turned around.

[Chris Cook]

Exactly.

[Tim Harford]

That's comforting.

[Chris Cook]

But that's only four and a half thousand as well. The remaining 48,000 are families where they have achieved improvement on met certain criteria on the family's behavior. So each child in the family has had fewer than three suspensions. They've got a truancy rate of less than 15%. There's been a 60% reduction in antisocial behavior across the family in the last six months. And the offending rate by all the minors in the family has been reduced by at least a third in the last six months.

[Tim Harford]

And if all of those criteria are met, then they go, family has been turned around.

[Chris Cook]

Exactly.

[Tim Harford]

Okay, now should we be impressed?

[Chris Cook]

No. It's possible to have a family where the adults are continuing to be out of work, where the children are missing a day of school every fortnight, where they are continuing to offend less than before, but continuing to offend. And the government will say, this is a family who has been turned around.

[Tim Harford]

I suppose one of the issues here is that things go up and down. I mean, behavior goes up and down, statistics go up and down. Are we just dealing with, in nerd speak, with regression to the mean? So people got on the list of troubled families because there was some serious problem. The problem didn't go away, but it got a bit better. And the government has pronounced success.

[Chris Cook]

Exactly. I mean, we know, for example, there is a council which had a sudden spur to success on this and it was because a large number of the family's youngest child was 16. So they left school. So the children stopped playing truant because, hey, presto is not playing true if you're over the school leaving age.

[Tim Harford]

So these families reach some criteria and then they are pronounced turned around. I mean, presumably they might get into trouble again and then be unturned around.

[Chris Cook]

One of the oddities of this program is that once you are deemed turned around so the kids stop offending, the truancy rate drops, you're not allowed back on the program. So whatever help you are getting from the program, and lots of the help, is actually totally sensible.

[Andrew Greystone]

Right?

[Chris Cook]

It's bringing together multiple agencies to help people with multiple problems, which is a really simple, sensible idea.

[Tim Harford]

So you've been very, very critical of the Government's numbers, but you're saying actually the policy is not absurd at all.

[Chris Cook]

I think the idea that getting social workers and mental health professionals and substance abuse professionals working together on families, which have those three issues, all at the same time agreeing a work plan, that's all totally sensible.

[Tim Harford]

So why is officially being turned around a permanent state of affairs? Why can't you be let back on the program?

[Chris Cook]

Well, it seems the National Audit Office wouldn't like it if we gave £3,200 to a council to run the programme, then gave them an £800 reward programme package for turning them around successfully, and then a year later had to put them on another 3200 pound program, which, with the possibility of another 800 pound reward for doing this.

[Tim Harford]

So the Government have decided that this policy is going so swimmingly that they're extending the scheme to help, wait for it, another 400,000 families making the Sunday Times figure of half a million. But now, where have these families come from? What are their troubles? Given how much fuss we made about the statistical problems in 2012, we can only presume that the figure of 400,000 is more rigorous than the figure of 120,000 was.

[Chris Cook]

Well, the Government's taken a really clever attitude to this number, so their solution to that appearance of being statistically enumerate, they've dealt with by just not telling us how they've come up with this 400,000 figure. In fact, a researcher at the University of Durham has asked for the basis on which it was devised, and they were told that the Government couldn't release it because it was still a policy and formulation and it was terribly important that ministers weren't challenged over the basis of the number.

[Tim Harford]

So at some stage we will know how the number was calculated, but not yet.

[Chris Cook]

Yeah, because they'll be forced to release it by a court eventually.

[Tim Harford]

Newsnight's Chris Cook. You're listening to More or Less with me, Tim Harford. Earlier this week, a headline in the Guardian caught our eye. CEOs earning 143 times more than company averages. Well, this figure comes from a report by the High Pay centre and it's three times the ratio quoted back in 1998. So that's a dizzying increase over the past decade and a half. And the most extreme example is stunning. A company called Randgold Resources, whose CEO earns 1500 times what the average employee of his company takes home. Ben Carter's here. Remarkable numbers, aren't they, Ben?

[Ben Carter]

Well, perhaps, but if you click over to the Guardian website, Tim, a mystery.

[Tim Harford]

Oh.

[Hagai Elad]

Hmm.

[Tim Harford]

Let's have a look.

[Hagai Elad]

Hmm.

[Tim Harford]

Removed. This article has been removed pending investigation.

[Hagai Elad]

Hmm.

[Tim Harford]

Now you're talking. So what's the story, Ben?

[Ben Carter]

Well, Tim, this report looked at the hundred large companies that make up the FTSE 100. It divides the CEO's total remuneration, that's base salary, shares the lot by the average salary, and creates what it calls a ceoworker multiple, which in the case

[Tim Harford]

of Arandgold Resources, was just shy of 1,500. The CEO earned nearly four and a half million pounds. And. And the average staff member earned just under £3,000. Which. Hang on, who earns £3,000 these days? I had a paper round in 1988 that paid more per hour than that.

[Ben Carter]

Well, Tim, there's a simple answer. The High Pay Centre got their calculations completely wrong and when the Guardian got wind of that, they took their article down. They have since published a correction and blamed the High Pay Centre for the error.

[Tim Harford]

So what was the error?

[Ben Carter]

Well, Rangold's annual report listed an amount for total wages and a number of employees. The High Pay Centre just divided one by the other to get the average wage. But actually the employee number included 12,000 contractors, but the wage bill only covered 3,000 employees. So that calculation is just a mistake. Rangold's employees are actually paid an average of £19,000, not 3,3000. And as a result, the salary multiple reduces dramatically. And that error also lowers the number for the whole FTSE 100.

[Tim Harford]

Interesting. A tale of remuneration renumeration. But Ben, some people would still say, look, the Chief Executive is a multi millionaire and the workers are being paid less than the average UK wage.

[Ben Carter]

Ah, but £19,000 a year is a big salary in Africa, Tim, and that's where most of Randgold's employees work, particularly in Mali and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The average salary in Mali is less than 700 pounds and the average salary in the Democratic Republic of Congo is less than £250.

[Tim Harford]

So Randgold is listed on the UK Stock Exchange but it's not really a British company?

[Ben Carter]

Well, it's not for me to define the essence of a British company, but Rangold has only eight employees in the uk.

[Tim Harford]

Now this is really interesting. If I remember rightly, a lot of FTSE 100 companies are global mining or oil companies. So actually part of what the High Pay Centre might be measuring isn't the gap between British bosses and British workers, but the gap between global bosses and a global workforce. Any other tidbits from the report that caught your eye?

[Ben Carter]

Well, Marks and Spencer's average salary was listed as being just under £14,000. And, and that's not so very much more than what you'd get working full time at the minimum wage. I asked Ms. About why their average salary was so close to the minimum and they pointed out that a large number of its employees work part time and therefore receive a part time wage.

[Tim Harford]

So what this report has done then is to compare the salary of the big boss with the salary of employees who could be working in Africa or India or China for many times the local wage or comparing them with the salaries of employees who are working part time in the uk. So the phrase comparing apples to oranges does come to mind.

[Ben Carter]

Quite. Although it remains true that they are very, very well paid apples.

[Tim Harford]

Thank you, Ben. You're listening to more or less the most intense fighting in Gaza since Israel launched its offensive has killed nearly 90 Palestinians today and 13 Israeli soldiers.

At least 30 Palestinians are killed and

[Chris Cook]

hundreds more are injured.

[Tim Harford]

More bloodshed in Gaza as Israel promises to respond with crushing for after an

[Keith Moore]

Israeli soldier is captured.

[Tim Harford]

The number of civilians killed in Gaza during the conflict between Palestinian militants there and the Israeli military has raised international concern and condemnation. A United nations report estimated that between 7 July and 20 August this year there were 1,999 deaths in Gaza caused by the conflict. Of those killed, the UN estimate that 70% were civilians and of those thought to be civilians, approximately 250 were women. 450 were children and 700 were men. The figures say the United nations are subject to change based on verification. The same UN report states that on the Israeli side, 64 soldiers have been killed and three civilians. Now the fact that among the Palestinian civilian casualties there are nearly three times as many men as women has been in the spotlight. Indeed, an article on the BBC news website if the Israeli attacks have been indiscriminate, as the UN Human Rights Council says it is hard to work out why they have killed so many more civilian men than women. Well, that's a comment that attracted controversy and a number of emails from listeners who've written to more or less directly. It might be worth spelling out why the comment invites people to conclude that if Israeli attacks were indiscriminate, we wouldn't see far more men than women killed. We'd see roughly equal numbers. And joining the dots, perhaps many of the men thought to be civilians weren't civilians at all. Now, none of that was explicitly said in the BBC article, but some critics have complained to more or less that that's what it was hinting at. And the Times of Israel, an online newspaper, ran an article citing the BBC's analysis in support of conclusions. All very sensitive stuff, needless to say. Well, Ruth Alexander's here to help me investigate. Ruth, before we get to the issue of what's happening in Gaza, what's the latest on that BBC article?

Well, that particular statement about how it's hard to square the UN's findings of indiscriminate attacks with the fact that more men than women had been killed.

Yeah, that one.

It's gone. The article's been edited to remove it. And a few days later, the BBC added a note about a series of clarifications, such as the inclusion of some possible explanations for why men were were disproportionately likely to be casualties.

I spoke about this gender imbalance to Matthias Benke from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for human rights. On 19 August, Matthias was speaking from Ramallah in the West Bank.

[Matthias Benke]

Men will generally be more exposed, they will move around more. Even when they are in shelters, they will be staying outside, not inside the buildings, but in the hallways outside. They will go back and to check on their homes. They will go out to get food and water, whereas children and women will usually be more sheltered and protected.

[Tim Harford]

Other researchers have told us that men are usually over represented in counts of civilian casualties. In war, it can be about the tasks men undertake, how they socialise, and also that they may be, in general, more of a target, more easily mistaken for fighters. We've been speaking to Mahmoud Abu Rama from the Almazan Centre for Human Rights in Gaza, which is a Palestinian group that has researchers on the ground gathering information and statistics on who has been killed. He gave an example of an attack that hit a beach cafe where people were watching a World cup match.

Now, in a Place like this in southern Gaza Strip, this cafe is more or less man only during the evening hours, at least. So you have many, many explanations.

[Andrew Greystone]

Our colleague was killed because he was on a motorcycle.

[Tim Harford]

Then the Israelis suspected him. So many more men die because of the suspicion, I believe, than women. So this idea that combatants are wrongly being counted as adult male civilian casualties, it's not necessarily true. Or at least the high male civilian death toll isn't strong evidence that a miscount is happening. There are several groups who are publishing casualty figures and their estimates vary. For example, the UN says that about 70% of casualties are civilian. The Israeli Defense Force has been reported as saying Civilian casualties are 50%. But when we called the IDF, they said they weren't able to confirm. Well, the UN numbers are seen as perhaps the most authoritative, but they're not without their critics. So how are they gathered? Here's Matthias Benke, the man in charge of them.

[Matthias Benke]

They're gathered in partnership with a number of organizations working in Gaza that are Palestinian, Israeli and international organizations that gather data. And we compile the information in a database that we run, which we also cross check and verify with data provided in the public domain, whether that be the Ministry of Health, the idf, even the armed groups sometimes provide information on websites and other social networks about their dead. On top of that, we have a team on the ground also checking and cross referencing these figures. So it's quite a comprehensive process. We by no means claim that it's a final perfect figure. We stress very clearly that these are subject to further verification, which we do as we go along.

[Tim Harford]

Some people have criticized these figures on the basis that fundamentally the source of the numbers is the Ministry of Health, and that's basically a Palestinian organization, it's controlled by Hamas. How would you respond to that criticism?

[Matthias Benke]

I would say, as I said before, that the Ministry of Health figures are one of our sources. It's certainly not the main source. For instance, the Ministry of Health does not differentiate in their figures between combatants and civilians. Furthermore, you will maybe have seen at times that our figures have actually been a bit higher than the Ministry of Health because we have more sources to rely on.

[Tim Harford]

I wanted to press Matthias for further detail about how exactly his statistics are created and how these armed groups figure in the process. But he said he couldn't give any more information. Perhaps that indicates how politically sensitive these numbers are. There are several reasons the count of the dead may differ between organisations. The yes, there are, of course, politics. But these groups are trying to make sense of what's going on in the

Fog of War, Hagai Elad from the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem has researchers on the ground in Gaza and he gave us a picture of how dangerous and how difficult their work is.

[Hagai Elad]

For instance, there would be news about the IDF ordering the evacuation of a certain Palestinian hospital in the northern Gaza Strip. Ideally, we would want our own researcher to go there and independently tell us what is the situation on the ground. But sometimes trying to drive over there could be dangerous, and sometimes being in a location in itself could be dangerous. So the confusion and the general intensity of the numbers are, I would say, the number one difficulty in analyzing the data.

[Tim Harford]

And how easy is it for researchers collecting statistics on the ground to tell who was a fighter and who wasn't? I mean, they can ask people, but will they always get a straight answer? Here's Haggai Allard again.

[Hagai Elad]

Sometimes there's a desire, it's more courageous for someone to have died as a combatant for some families. In other cases, it's maybe there's a desire to show that the percentage of non combatants that died is high. So, yeah, there will be pressures, no question about that.

[Tim Harford]

This is why they and the other groups we've spoken to say they do cross checks. They don't take what they're told at face value. But counting the of war is always hard and usually controversial.

Well, thank you, Ruth. You're listening to More or less. If you want to ask us a question or send us a comment, our email address is more or lessbc.co.uk and our website with more information and a free download of the program is BBC.co.uk More or less. There's been a marriage in the More or Less Family. This charming music by Orchid was what the bride of our ace new reporter Keith Moore walked up the aisle to a few days ago. Keith, moving moment.

[Keith Moore]

It was amazing. The sun was shining. Our friends and family were there.

[Tim Harford]

Congratulations. Now your honeymoon's over. Welcome to More or less. And the question we've all been wondering, Keith, statistically speaking, what's the chance that your marriage ends in divorce?

[Keith Moore]

You're a cruel, cruel man, of course. Zero percent.

[Tim Harford]

Well, you say that, Keith, but I've got a fascinating chart here from the Office for National Statistics showing when divorces happen. And right now you're fine. Divorce before your first wedding anniversary. That's pretty rare. But the risks rise quickly. Between your fourth and your eighth wedding anniversary, the chance of a divorce is more than 3% a year. You'll be interested to hear. So if you get past that, things improve. But, Keith, I would be careful how you tread between 2018 and 2020.

[Keith Moore]

It feels good to have such a warm welcome to the team. Thank you very much, Tim.

[Tim Harford]

My pleasure.

[Keith Moore]

But I've come prepared. You're right that the ONS collects data and currently reckons that 42% of marriages in England and Wales end in divorce. But every marriage is different. And I've been reassured after looking into some of the factors that affect divorce. Firstly, age. My wife is almost 30. She won't thank me for reminding her of that.

[Tim Harford]

Very gentlemanly.

[Keith Moore]

And I'm 32. So. Research has shown that the older people are when they get married, the less likely they are to get divorced. The ONS highlights previous research on this, which showed that for brides that were younger than 20 when they got married, 53% had divorced by their 30th anniversary. But that figure dropped to 23% for women who were aged between 30 and 34 when they got married.

[Tim Harford]

Well, so far, so good. Anything else?

[Keith Moore]

So, while fewer people get married nowadays compared to previous generations, the ONS says that for people who got married after the year 2000, the percentage of marriages ending in divorce is actually falling. It says that's likely due to the fact that people are getting married when they're older and also because of the increase in people cohabiting.

[Tim Harford]

You say cohabiting, Keith. I say living in sin.

[Keith Moore]

Well, I asked Chris Sherwood from Relate about the connection between cohabitation and lasting marriages.

[Chris Sherwood]

You kind of know who your partner is, you know a bit about them, you've lived with them, you've seen the good times and you've seen the bad times, so you have a better sense of who you're marrying. And that has certainly impacted on the divorce frame.

[Keith Moore]

My wife and I actually lived together for a few years before we got married in sin, before we got married. So I'm going to put that as another tick in the puzz positive box. Aside from the numbers, I also made sure before he left the studio that I got some tips for a successful marriage from relates Chris Sherwood.

[Chris Sherwood]

We asked over 5,000 people what were the three top ingredients for a good successful relationship. So let me give you some of the wisdom of those people. Commitment, honesty and communication. And what was really interesting is honesty is really important in the first five years of your relationship. And actually commitment gets more important. So focus on honesty, focus on commitment and focus on communication, and I'm sure you'll do all right.

[Tim Harford]

Well, Keith, that all sounds very reasonable, but come on, this is More Or Less. Is all this advice based on sound statistical research? These correlations you've identified, cohabiting being older, are they causal relationships? Are they just proxies for something else, such as income or education or religious background? Come on, Keith, come on. I want numbers. What's the probability that your marriage will end in failure?

[Keith Moore]

Hang on a second.

[Tim Harford]

Quickly, Keith, what's taking you so long?

[Keith Moore]

All you've given me is the dogulator. It's not really designed to.

[Tim Harford]

I'm sorry, I'm gonna have to hurry you. Keith, come

[Keith Moore]

with my calculations, which are obviously very reliable. The chance of my marriage ending in divorce is 0%.

[Tim Harford]

Good man. Welcome to More or Less Keith, and congratulations. If you'd like to comment on anything you've heard in this show, including Keith's chances, our email address is more or lessbc.co.uk. last week, we were pleased to be able to introduce a new measurement system on More or less the BBC's Peter Day, a business and economics presenter for the past 40 years, had become dissatisfied with the standard financial reporting methods. It often just becomes a jumble of numbers, which doesn't leave you with much sense of what's really going on, he pointed out. Far better to do a sound for it. For example, that would be two points off the footsie, maybe.

[Andrew Greystone]

Yeah.

[Tim Harford]

And then when it went down 50 points, and then when it went down 500 points. And that's quite a serious observation. But was Peter missing a trick? Loyal listener Andrew Greystone, a presenter of BBC Radio 4's the Daily Service, emailed us to say he thought he was, so we got him on the line.

[Andrew Greystone]

Peter's a legend, but I think he's missed some of the other possibilities that radio offers for making trends in statistics easier to understand. For instance, you were talking about a statistic about the. In the number of black bears. Now, it might be clearer to illustrate that by varying the volume rather than the pitch. So a sharp rise in the number of bears would come out something like this.

[Tim Harford]

Grr.

I see. Yeah, that makes good sense.

[Andrew Greystone]

And there are other trends that would be clearer if they were represented by a change in pace. So if, for instance, there's a sharp rise in the number of pollutants in the atmosphere, that might be best represented like this.

[Tim Harford]

Yep, got it. That works for me. Anything else?

[Andrew Greystone]

Well, Peter's idea of presenting statistics as rising or falling tones also allows you, potentially, with the magic of radio, to present statistics in relation to each other. So we were talking about student loans last week. If the rise in the threshold for repayment of student loans leads to a proportionate fall in the RAB rate. You could illustrate it like this, But you'd have to put those two together

[Tim Harford]

in the edit with two presenters. We could do that.

[Andrew Greystone]

Oh, shall we try?

[Tim Harford]

Yeah.

[Andrew Greystone]

Do you want to be the rise or the fall?

[Tim Harford]

I'll be the rise. Okay.

[Andrew Greystone]

I'll be the fall.

[Tim Harford]

Ready? One, two, three.

[Andrew Greystone]

What could be clearer?

[Tim Harford]

Andrew Greyston, loyal listener. Thank you very much.

[Andrew Greystone]

I probably need to get out more.

[Tim Harford]

Possibly. If you do too and you think you can do better, by all means, email us at more or lessbc.co.uk. our website is BBC.co.uk more or less, where you can download as many episodes as you like. We'll be back on air at the same time next week. Until then, goodbye.

More or Less was presented by Tim Harford of the Financial Times. The producer was Ruth Alexander. You can download Many more Radio 4 programs at the Radio 4 website. BBC Co UK Radio 4.