Pie Chart

A pie chart is a circle segmented to illustrate shares or percentages of the total; each category appears as a “slice” of the “pie.” Bar charts can be used for the same purpose, but a pie chart gives a more readily comprehensible picture of how cases are “shared out” between categories, provided there are relatively few categories. (A histogram or bar chart would be used in preference to a pie chart for showing trends across a variable—e.g., over time or by geographical locality.)

Figure 1, for example, illustrates what people living in a town center had to say about their area and what was good about it.

Figure 1 What Is Good About Living in Your Area?

Data from Hobson-West and Sapsford (2001).

Figure 2 Purpose of Visit to the Citizens' Advice Bureau in Middlesbrough

McGuinness and Sapsford (2002).

Pie charts can also be used to make simple comparisons between categories. Again, bar charts can be used for the same purpose and may, indeed, be preferable when there are several different groups to be compared, but pie charts give a graphic contrast between, say, two groups that can be seen easily and immediately. The “pies” in Figure 2, for instance, illustrate the difference in reasons for using a Citizens' Advice Bureau by ethnic group. The Citizens' Advice Bureaus are a network of volunteer offices across Britain that offer advice and guidance on dealing with the bureaucracy in the face of which the poor are otherwise powerless—with central and local government, taxation, landlords, shops, and other financial and legal matters—and they also offer counseling on debt and financial management. Figure 2 shows, unsurprisingly, that immigration and nationality are issues that are often brought up by the Asian population of Middlesbrough and very seldom by the White population. The White population is a little more likely than the Asian population to raise issues about housing and benefits (government support payments) and substantially more likely to have debt problems that they want to discuss.