limitations

• P - availabilty The government collects statistics for its own purposes, and not for the benefit of sociologists, so there may be none available on the topic they are interested in. 

  • some statistics may be restricted due to confidentiality agreements or classified by particular organisations such as government agencies. For example, schools may be unwilling to release student data that may be deemed sensitive.
• Practical – Different/changing definitions

  • The definitions that the state uses in collecting the data may be different from those that sociologists would use. For example, they may define 'poverty' or 'homelessness' differently. In turn, this may lead to different views of how large the problem is. Is a homeless person someone who sleeps rough or someone who may sleep in hostels or on friends’ settees (or ‘sofa’ / ‘couch’, if you’re middle-class)
• • (2) definitions change over time, it may make comparisons difficult. For example, the official definition of unemployment changed over 30 times during the 1980s and early 1990s - so the unemployment statistics are not comparing like with like. Similarly, GCSEs replaced O-levels in 1988, so a direct comparison between your grades and your parents’ is not possible.
• Theoretical - Validity: The 'dark figure’

  • A major problem with using official statistics is that of validity. Do they actually measure the thing that they claim to measure? Some official statistics do succeed in doing this. For example, statistics on the number of births, deaths, marriages and divorces generally give a very accurate picture (although a small number of births and deaths do go unrecorded). However, other statistics give a much less valid picture.