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Update on harmonisation work on the topics of sex, sexual orientation and gender identity

The GSS harmonisation team are restructuring to embed elements of their work into the future of population and migration statistics transformation work. This strategic move is part of the wider business planning at the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and will position and prioritise the central harmonisation resource at the centre of the future population and migration system.

The GSS harmonisation team are currently prioritising research to update the ethnicity standard. The team’s plans for ethnicity and other priority areas will be updated once the ONS’ public consultation on the future of population and migration statistics in England and Wales has concluded. This will allow the ONS time to review this source of relevant responses from users about their needs. This information will also be used to inform their future research plans.

This news page provides a Government Statistical Service (GSS) Harmonisation team update on the topics of sex, sexual orientation and gender identity (SSOGI). This page outlines our recent publications, our planned work and out reflections on the project so far.

December 2022 publications

In December 2022 we have:

  • published our review of the gender identity standard — this review summarises the strengths and weaknesses of the current standard and sets out our future work to move the standard from ‘under development’ to the ‘final’ version
  • updated our GSS Harmonisation workplan for sex, sexual orientation and gender identity to include information on our future plans with associated timelines

Our work on sex

Data on an individual’s sex is a commonly asked for or recorded variable in official statistics. There can be valid reasons to produce measures based on different classifications or definitions depending on the question the producers are trying to address through the statistics. We plan to improve the suite of guidance available for data collectors. This will involve making existing guidance easier to access and undertaking new research to fill data gaps, focusing on telephone and face to face collection modes.

Significant stakeholder engagement and development work was undertaken for the 2021 England and Wales Census and Scotland’s Census 2022 sex questions. We will use these questions as a starting point for our own work. We plan to:

  • update our harmonisation team webpages by early 2023 to reflect a suite of existing technical guidance for data collectors — this will include providing links to existing guidance such as those written by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), Office for Statistical Regulation (OSR), and Scottish Government
  • undertake new research to complement existing ONS research — we will start by exploring what further guidance is needed for telephone and face to face collection modes, which is where there are the most guidance gaps
  • undertake stakeholder engagement, which includes a survey planned for spring next year — we will also be inviting data users exploring administrative data to complete the survey in order to better understand how data is collected in administrative datasets for sex

Our work on gender identity

Our recently published gender identity review gives information about our gender identity standard which is currently under development. The review also sets out our findings about how this standard is working and how we plan to take the standard from the ‘under development’ phase to the ‘final’ version.

Our work on sexual orientation

We have an under development harmonised standard for sexual orientation. We will begin our work on this topic by publishing a review like the gender identity review. We plan to begin work on the review at the beginning of 2023 and plan to publish an update by Spring 2023.

You can find information about the voluntary sexual orientation 2021 Census question on the ONS website.

What happens next

SSOGI is a fast-evolving topic. Definitions, terminology, and thinking on the topic are constantly changing and developing. We will continue to ensure that we are aware of changing social norms, and respondent and user needs. Different types of data will bring new insights about the topic and will help us develop our work further. This will include working with administrative data and latest Census data, among other data sources.

We have a clear course of action to improve the suite of guidance available for data collectors. This will involve making existing guidance easier to access and undertaking new research to fill data gaps, concentrating on telephone and face to face collection modes. We will also be analysing write-in responses to the second part of the gender identity question from Census 2021 and explore the possibility of having a list of gender identities as a closed question.