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Social Science Data Resources: General

Guide to finding resources for research related to the social sciences.

Broad data resources

Broad data resources

The resources provided here are often a good place to start research. They include some general purpose, multiple topic collections and portals of statistical and data resources as well as some country/region-specific resources- as many of those are maintained by national statistical agencies.

Multi-subject Repositories

ICPSR (Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research)
Data archive of more than 250,000 files of research in the social and behavioral sciences. It hosts 21 specialized collections of data in education, aging, criminal justice, substance abuse, terrorism, and other fields
Gallup Analytics
US and worldwide polling data.
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See also the World Poll Reference tool: https://wpr.gallup.com/signin/default.aspx
Data.gov - United States Open data catalog
Contains federal, state and local data, tools, and resources to conduct research, build apps, design data visualizations. Includes health, science, and public safety data
Qualitative Data Repository
Social Science data archive; also provides detailed guidance for researchers collecting and working with qualitative data.
World Bank DataBank
Access to Archival Databases (AAD) - National Archives
The U.S. National Archives have some online data resources not likely found elsewhere, if not necessarily statistical in nature.
Dryad
Historical Statistics of the United States Millennial Edition Online
Odum Institute for Research in Social Science - Dataverse Network Search for data holdings
Population Reference Bureau DataFinder
"The Population Reference Bureau informs people around the world about population, health, and the environment..." - see http://www.prb.org/Datafinder/Topic/FullList.aspx for list of variables and http://www.prb.org/Datafinder/DatafinderSources.aspx for l
UN Data Explorer
Listing of databases in UNdata with hierarchical view of their contents.
UNESCO Institute for Statistics
UN Statistical Databases
by United Nations Statistics Division
UN World Urbanization Prospects

Country and Region Focused

Country Statistical Yearbooks
by Data and Information Services Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Data Haven
Data and statistics on Connecticut
Eurostat
International Household Survey Network (IHSN)
Searchable metadata of surveys on topics of low- and middle- income countries.
Statistical Abstract of the United States (after 2012, Yale access only)
An excellent starting point for statistical information about the USA.
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For editions prior to 2012: http://www.census.gov/library/publications/time-series/statistical_abstracts.html
European Social Survey (ESS)
Survey on public opinion in Europe conducted every two years. It is a robust survey that emphasizes data that is comparable across countries.

Data from the Web

Demographic data

IPUMS
Public use microdata of government produced data that is curated and harmonized.
PolicyMap
Map a wide variety of variables for the U.S.; free registration.
SimplyAnalytics
Web-based mapping application includes data from the U.S. Census, EASI Analytics, Simmons LOCAL and Nielsen Scarborough
Social Explorer
Provides easy access to current and historical census data and demographic information including zip code level data
Gallup Analytics
Provides trends in US and worldwide polling data. Search for data by topic, geography or keyword. Export tables, charts, graphs, and find relevant articles.
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See also the World Poll Reference tool: https://wpr.gallup.com/signin/default.aspx; Yale subscribes to individual response data contact researchdata@yale.edu for access.

Last Updated: Jan 27, 2025 10:37 AM
URL: https://guides.library.yale.edu/data-statistics
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Subjects: Data and Statistics, Economics, Political Science and Policy Studies, Sociology

Tags: data, social_science, statistics