The limits to personal self-categorization on key demographics

Any research survey is likely to apply some set of rules in order to classify respondents according to age, gender, social class, ethnicity, disability, and so on.

The Issue

Should we name-blind the curriculum vitae of job applicants? At what age should employees retire? Should members of the trans population be permitted to use whichever toilets they wish? It is not immediately obvious why the answer to any one of these questions is relevant to the answer to any of the others. Nor is it clear what the implications of any of the answers should have for the conduct of market research. The purpose of this viewpoint is to suggest that there is an important common thread underlying each area of debate and to explain why it...

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