Finding Data & Statistics: Frequently Used Data

Data Collections & Dataset Finders

UC San Diego Social Sciences Data Collection
Miscellaneous datasets purchased for the UC San Diego community. Includes:
Data on Terrorist Suspects (DOTS)
Field (California) Poll, 1956 - [Latest Release]
International Country Risk Guide: Table 3B: Political Risk Points by Component
International Terrorism: Attributes of Terrorist Events (ITERATE), 1968 - [most recent]
Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP) 1978-2003 [Repository Data]
POLIDATA Presidential Results by Congressional District (PRCD)
DataCite
Search for datasets across over 1000 different major data centers and repositories including ICPSR, Harvard Dataverse, Data-Planet, the California Digital Library, Figshare, Dryad, the Center for Open Science, UC San Diego Library Digital Collections, etc.

ICPSR Data Archive
The Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) has been collecting and facilitating access to social science data for over 60 years and currently has nearly 21,000 studies with over 6.6 million variables. ICPSR maintains over a dozen thematic data collections for topics like health, crime, social media, elections, opinion polls, and more. To download data from ICPSR, UC San Diego affiliates can log in using the “access through your institution” option and authenticate with their single sign on (SSO) credentials. ICPSR also tracks citations of data hosted by ICPSR through the ICPSR Bibliography of Data-Related Publications. With about 116,000 related publications, this searchable database provides real examples of how researchers have analyzed the wide variety of data available through ICPSR.

Dataverse (Harvard)
Access the world's largest collection of social science research data here by searching across or browsing through one of the virtual data archives (called "dataverses") listed below. Data is uploaded by researchers from around the world.
Odum Institute Dataverse Network - data catalog
Data catalog for the Odum Institute, which maintains one of the oldest and largest catalog of machine-readable data in the U.S., plus harvest data catalogs for the Dataweb, NARA, IQSS, Roper, and ICPSR.
re3data.org
Registry of research data repositories
Population Reference Bureau
A database with hundreds of variables for the US and the world.

Data Citation Index
Indexes research data, including data studies and data sets, and links them to the scientific literature to track data citation. Part of Web of Science.

ResearchDataGov
A web portal for discovering and requesting access to restricted microdata from federal statistical agencies. ResearchDataGov.org is a product of the federal statistical agencies and units, created in response to the Foundations of Evidence-based Policymaking Act of 2018. The site and service is built by and hosted at ICPSR at the University of Michigan, under contract and guidance from the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics within the National Science Foundation.

Frequently Used Datasets

Consumer Expenditure Survey (CES) Series
The Consumer Expenditure Survey (CES) series provides information on the buying habits of American consumers and data to support periodic revisions of the Consumer Price Index.
Current Population Survey
A monthly survey of approximately 50,000 households conducted by the Bureau of the Census for the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The survey has been conducted for more than 50 years. A detailed demographic supplement is conducted annually in March, and supplements on other topics, including computer use and school enrollment.
General Social Survey
General Social Survey (GSS) is a long running survey of social, cultural and political indicators. In addition to the GSS, topic modules include computer and Internet, racial and ethnic prejudice, and child mental-health stigma. The GSS has participated since 1985 in the International Social Survey Program.
IPUMS
Public use microdata from the U. S. census and American Community Survey; the U.S. Current Population Survey; and international censuses. Data can be downloaded or analyzed online.
National Education Longitudinal Study 1988
A sample of eighth-graders surveyed in 1988 on a range of topics. A sample were resurveyed through four follow-ups in 1990, 1992, 1994, and 2000. The study has four types of data files - student, teacher, parent, and school - although not each type is available for each survey year.
National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 and 1997
The National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth are designed to document the transition from school to work and into adulthood. They collect extensive information about youths' labor market behavior and educational experiences over time. Data are also available from SSDS.
Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) Series
The Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) series was begun in 1968 to fill the need for a better understanding of the determinants of family income and its changes. Longitudinal survey of US individuals and the families in which they reside.
Survey of Consumer Finances
Conducted every three years, this survey collects information on the assets, liabilities and other financial characteristics of households. It is the only U.S. survey that contains an oversample of wealthy households. Sample Size is about 4,500 families.
Survey of Income and Program Participation
A longitudinal U. S. government survey of the financial status of American households conducted since 1984. Covers government transfer and service programs, pension coverage, housing affordability, financial assistance for education, among other topics. Data may also be accessed via ICPSR. However be aware this is a difficult set of surveys to use.

more... less...

The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) makes the SIPP data and documentation available along with Stata, SPSS, and SAS programs for reading the data. Users may find the NBER site the easiest to use.
World Values Survey
The series is designed to enable a crossnational comparison of values and norms on a wide variety of topics and to monitor changes in values and attitudes across the globe. A variety of questions on religion and morality were included. Data is currently available at ICPSR for 1981-1984, 1990-1993, 1995-1997, and 1999-2004.
US Government data by agency:
Almost all agencies of the United States Government provide access to related data at their agency websites. Google search the agency and search the website by searching for 'data' or 'statistics', for example: Department of Justice to find crime statistics; Bureau of Labor Statistics to find all kinds of employment, unemployment and related data.