IPUMS International – Page 2

Going Global: IPUMS International

September 5, 2023September 5, 2023 by mpcblog

By Diana Magnuson

Display case with a banner "Going Global: IPUMS International" and memorabilia from around the world — The display case at IPUMS HQ

A new exhibit, “Going Global: IPUMS International,” is now on display at IPUMS headquarters, housed at the University of Minnesota. The exhibit features pieces that tell the history and scope of IPUMS International.

Beginning in 1999 with a social science infrastructure grant from the National Science Foundation, IPUMS International had a simple yet audaciously ambitious goal: preserve the world’s microdata resources and democratize access to those resources. Twenty-four years later, the goals are: collecting and preserving census and survey data and documentation; harmonizing those data; and disseminating the harmonized data free of charge. The data series includes information on an impressive range of population characteristics, including fertility, nuptiality, life-course transitions, migration, labor-force participation, occupational structure, education, ethnicity, and household composition.

Dr. Bob McCaa standing behind a table with stacks of paper — Dr. Bob McCaa

Source data for IPUMS International are generously provided by participating national statistical offices. Our staff develop and nurture relationships with representatives of NSOs from around the world. As IPUMS International got underway, co-principal investigator Dr. Bob McCaa, University of Minnesota Department of History, “proved to have formidable persuasive powers and managed to convince . . . agency directors of the benefits of preservation and access to scientific information.” Over time, IPUMS International developed a team of research scientists articulating to a broad international audience the significance of the IPUMS data collection, harmonization, and preservation work. Today, an NSF advisory committee, senior personnel including research scientists and data analysts, an external advisory panel, and graduate and undergraduate research assistants all support the work of IPUMS International.

Malaria Transmission in Context: Linking Health, Census, and Ecological Data

June 13, 2025January 12, 2023 by mpcblog

by Yara Ghazal, Ilyana Hohenkirk, Tracy Kugler, and Kelly Searle

Malaria, like many vector-borne diseases, impacts health, economic growth, and society. The burden of malaria incidence and death is concentrated in Sub-Saharan Africa; in 2020, 95% of all malaria cases and 96% of all deaths occurred in Sub-Saharan Africa (WHO, 2022). Malaria impacts not only population health but also the economic growth of these 32 countries. It is estimated that up to 1.3% of economic growth in this region of Africa is slowed each year due to malaria (CCP-JHU, 2015). Understanding malaria transmission is essential to ending its spread and creating a healthier and more prosperous future for developing nations.

The literature on malaria transmission patterns has shown that several environmental factors impact mosquito and parasite vital rates, and thus affect the transmission intensity, seasonality, and geographical distribution of malaria (Castro, 2017). Temperature and precipitation are the primary climate-based factors that influence malaria transmission patterns. Temperature creates geographical constraints for vector and parasite development. Increasing temperatures have been found to shorten mosquito maturation time and increase feeding frequency. However, areas of extremely high temperatures usually yield smaller, less fecund mosquitoes. In parallel, because mosquitoes often breed in pools formed by rainfall and flooding, the frequency, duration, and intensity of precipitation have a significant influence on mosquito populations.

IPUMS at ICFP2022

June 13, 2025November 30, 2022 by mpcblog

by Devon Kristiansen

IPUMS was proud to partake in the International Conference on Family Planning in Pattaya City, Thailand. We participated by hosting a pre-conference workshop, sponsoring the conference, staffing an exhibit both, and presenting research as part of the conference program. The conference, held between November 14th and 17th, 2022, had 3,500 in-person attendees, with many virtual participants, as well.

Research staff representing IPUMS PMA, IPUMS DHS, IPUMS MICS, and IPUMS International conducted a 2-hour pre-conference workshop, providing participants with an overview of each of the IPUMS data collections featuring international data as well as a website and data analysis demonstration.

IPUMS International has brand new low level geographic variables and shapefiles

September 22, 2022July 8, 2022 by mpcblog

By Quinn Heimann

Map showing percentage of households with internet access in the 2014 Myanmar census by township — Map of Myanmar Internet Access

An ongoing goal and challenge for IPUMS-International (IPUMSI) is providing users with the most detailed geography possible. A unique obstacle to this is the confidentiality requirements agreed upon in order to distribute these census and survey samples. Nevertheless, IPUMSI has started launching lower-level geographic variables in samples where data is sufficient and confidentiality thresholds are still met. As of spring 2022, twenty samples have been released with third administrative level geographic data, covering ten countries across Africa and Asia. In addition, accompanying shapefiles are also being distributed to supplement these variables. Shapefiles can be used in conjunction with these more granular geographic variables to map out population trends in greater detail.

Screenshot to IPUMS International third level download page — IPUMSI third level download page

Many of these countries have multiple samples with lower level geography variables available. It is always a goal of IPUMSI to provide users with as much detail as possible for each sample, but this is sometimes hindered by a lack of sufficient data or detail. Some countries, such as Bangladesh and Mali, contain sufficient detail to provide lower level geography for all available samples in IPUMSI. More recent samples often contain more detail and more thorough documentation, whereas oftentimes this level of information is not present for samples produced longer ago.

IPUMS International 2022 Data Release

April 29, 2022April 28, 2022 by mpcblog

By Jane Lyon Lee, IPUMS International

IPUMS International has added 7 new census samples and new labor force surveys including the first-time data release from the Slovak Republic and historical samples from Egypt 1848 and 1868. The other newly added samples extend pre-existing series. The growing IPUMSI labor force survey collection has expanded with the addition of quarterly surveys from Mexico (ENOE 2005-2020) and more data from Spain & Italy. See a summary of the full IPUMS collection on the IPUMSI samples page.

IPUMS Announces 2020 Research Award Recipients

June 10, 2025May 17, 2021 by mpcblog

IPUMS is excited to announce the winners of its annual IPUMS Research Awards. These awards honor the best-published research and nominated graduate student papers from 2020 that used IPUMS data to advance or deepen our understanding of social and demographic processes.

IPUMS, developed by and housed at the University of Minnesota, is the world’s largest individual-level population database, providing harmonized data on people in the U.S. and around the world to researchers at no cost.

There are six award categories, and each is tied to the following IPUMS projects:

IPUMS USA, providing data from the U.S. decennial censuses, the American Community Survey, and IPUMS CPS from 1850 to the present.
IPUMS International, providing harmonized data contributed by more than 100 international statistical office partners; it currently includes information on 500 million people in more than 200 censuses from around the world, from 1960 forward.
IPUMS Health Surveys, which makes available the U.S. National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) and the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS).
IPUMS Spatial, covering IPUMS NHGIS and IPUMS Terra. NHGIS includes GIS boundary files from 1790 to the present; Terra provides data on population and the environment from 1960 to the present.
IPUMS Global Health: providing harmonized data from the Demographic and Health Surveys and the Performance Monitoring and Accountability surveys, for low and middle-income countries from the 1980s to the present.
IPUMS Time Use, providing time diary data from the U.S. and around the world from 1965 to the present.

Over 2,500 publications based on IPUMS data appeared in journals, magazines, and newspapers worldwide last year. From these publications and from nominated graduate student papers, the award committees selected the 2020 honorees.

Where was IPUMSI in 2020?

September 29, 2021March 22, 2021 by mpcblog

By Jane Lyon Lee, IPUMS International

Last March, when the IPUMS International research team attended the 51st Meeting of the UN Statistical Commission, we were just beginning to hear about the spread of a novel virus. We soon discovered that the Commission meeting would be our last in-person event of the year. Soon after, a pandemic quickly paralyzed our world, including the ever-important census and survey work. We all were called on to seek out and, in some cases, create new paths via which data collection, protection, analysis, and dissemination could continue.