Research Guides: Social Science Data Research Guide: Data Sources

Statistics through Datasets

Afrobarometer (access data using ICPSR)
Arab Barometer (access data using ICPSR)
Asian Barometer
Data Depot by Public Policy Institute of California
Data gathered on California and Californians.
Data Set Archives from UC Berkeley
Data sets with easy to use software. Covers General Social Survey, Election surveys, American Community Census, California Census, Racial Attitudes and Prejudices, and Labor and Health.
Eurobarometer
General Social Survey (GSS)
General Social Survey by SSRIC
Source of data on societal trends over a long time series.
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YOU MUST BE ON CSU CAMPUS TO RUN THE DATA SETS
HUD Datasets
US Housing and Urban Development data sets.
ICPSR (Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research)
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The Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), established in 1962, is an integral part of the infrastructure of social science research. ICPSR maintains and provides access to a vast archive of social science data for research and instruction, and offers training in quantitative methods to facilitate effective data use. Through the CSU's membership in the ICPSR, students, faculty, and staff can download data using ICPSR Direct.
Coverage: 1962 to present.
Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS)
Data sets on higher education institutions dealing with enrollment, retention, graduation rates, student ages, and faculty and staff.
International Social Survey Programme (ISSP)
Internet Data Sources for Social Scientists by Cornell University
Links to data sets available from various universities and organizations.
Latinobarómetro
Minnesota Population Center
Provides access to IPUMS: Integrated Public Use Microdata Series, NAPP: North Atlantic Population Project, NHGIS: National Historical Geographic Information System, IHIS: Integrated Health Interview Series, and ATUS-X: American Time Use Survey-X.
National Health Interview Survey (NHIS)
National Opinion Research Center Data Access
Orange County (CA) Survey Pacific Poll by UC Irvine
Data collected surveying run in SPSS.
PEW Internet and American Life Project by PEW
Data on american life and feelings especially in relationship to electronics, internet and new technologies.
Pew Social and Demographic Trends
Public Policy Institute of California Survey Tools
Research Data (Application Portal for Restricted Data for Federal Statistics)
United States Government Data
Federal Government Agency raw data sets, with tools to run government based data.
World Values Survey

Examples of Citing

How to Cite Roper Center Data

Existing Data Sources

General Social Survey
Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR)
National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (NACJD)
National Juvenile Court Data Archive
Social Science Research and Instructional Council (SSRIC)
ssdan.org
http://merlot.org/
http://teachingwithdata.org/
Field (California) Polls
Roper Center for Public Opinion Research
Measure of America: A Project of the Social Science Research Council
Provides easy-to-use yet methodologically sound tools for understanding the distribution of well-being and opportunity in America and stimulating fact-based dialogue about issues we all care about: health, education, and living standards.

Free Data Sets

CenStats
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Databases provided by the Bureau of the Census including: Annual Survey of Manufactures, Census Tract Street Locator, USA Counties 1996, and ZIP Code Business Patterns. See also the U.S. Census Bureau website.
FedStats by US Government Agencies
Gateway to statistics from over 100 US Federal Agencies.
Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial times to 1970
Online version of the data produced for the U.S. Bicentennial
Historical U.S. Census Browser by University of Virginia
Census data from 1790 to 1960, including mapping.
Human Development Report by United Nations
Data internationally.
InfoPlease Almanace
Topic arrangement that leads to basic statistics.
Intenet Data Sources for Social Scientists by Cornell University
Links to many sources that are listed under the topics here but more complete.
Joint Center Databank
Data on various US topics.
OECD Stat
Free (public use) database which includes 70% of the full content of OECD Health Data
Statistics Abstract of the United States by US Census
Summary of statistics on the social, political, and economic organization of the US.
TradeStats Express
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Accesses U.S. merchandise trade statistics at both the national and state levels. TSE features a user-friendly interface that enables visitors to retrieve, visualize, analyze, print and download trade data with ease. Graphics, data tables, and thematic maps can be custom-tailored to user needs and generated on-the-fly. Data on major geographic regions (e.g., Middle East) and trade preference regions (e.g., NAFTA) are pre-aggregated, permitting quick retrieval. Visitors also can tabulate national trade statistics using any of three major product classification systems (HS, NAICs, or SITC).
UK Government Statistics
Gateway to British government statistics.
UNdata
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UNSTATS Common Database covers all countries and areas and selected series from more than 30 specialized international data sources. The data can be accessed alphabetically, by sources, or by topics. Among the main data sources are the UN Statistics Division's own databases in merchandise trade, national accounts, demography and population, energy, status of women and industrial commodities production; and statistics from the Population Division, the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs' Project Link, FAO, ILO, IMF, ITU, OECD, UNESCO, WHO, WIPO, World Bank and World Tourism Organization, among others.
Urban Institute Data at a Glance
Various topics with data and charts.
Urban Institute Web Iniatitives
Note the data set listed in right hand column of this page, many data sets on specific topics.

Other Data Sets from SSRIC website

American National Election Study (ANES).
Various datasets from 1948 to present.

General Social Survey (GSS).
Various datasets from 1972 to present, including the cumulative file for 1972-2012. They can be downloaded from the National Opinion Research Center site in SPSS or Stata format. In addition, several instructional subsets of GSS data are available on the SSRIC site here.

Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID).
Various datasets from 1968 to present.

Survey Documentation and Analysis (SDA).
Developed at UC Berkeley,SDA allows users to do statistical analysis online without the need for any client-side software (such as SPSS, SAS, or Stata). Datasets in SDA format include the American National Election Study and the General Social Survey.

ICPSR Thematic Collections
Archives at ICPSR provide access to data collections (many of them in SDA format) and other resources in many disciplines. Note: some of these data are available only to students, faculty, and staff at ICPSR member institutions.

Public Policy Institute of California Data Depot
Statewide California public opinion polls from 1998 to the present, along with data on California's demography, natural resources, and public finance.

Pew Research Center Data Archive
Survey data from the Pew Research Center For The People & The Press, 1997 to present.

IPUMS (Integrated Public Use Microdata Series) Census Microdata
Census Microdata.