Learning from Data: From Systemization to Investigation

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Benjamin Hartman is a 2016 Summer Diversity Fellow  at the MPC. As part of his fellowship, he learned how to take unprocessed data to produce harmonized IPUMS-I data and documentation, make GIS maps, and conduct his own case study investigating the spatial dimensions of internal migration using the Cambodian census. Hartman worked with his colleagues in IPUMS International to create this blog post.

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New Feature: Terra Populus Launches TerraScope

A boy at a farm in Cambodia. Photo: USAID HARVEST Program

TerraPop recently launched TerraScope, a map-based portal for exploring the data in the TerraPop collection. The TerraPop collection includes census data from over 160 countries around the world, as well as environmental data describing land cover, land use, and climate. With such a broad range of data available, selecting a study area for which data are available to study a particular question or, conversely, determining the types of research questions that can be studied within an area of interest can be challenging.

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A History of Data: Good People, Good Work

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Bethel University Professor of History Diana L. Magnuson is documenting the growth of the Minnesota Population Center. Believing that preserving institutional memory is vital, the Center is supporting Magnuson’s work to capture oral histories of past and present MPC faculty and staff. This is the third in a three-part series of oral histories. This post features several senior research staff: Trent Alexander, Sarah Flood, Ron Goeken, Patricia Kelly Hall, Monty Hindman, and David Van Riper.

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When Migration is Out of Reach: New MPC Research on International Climate Migration

A farmer in Burkina Faso. Photo: Ollivier Girard for Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR
A farmer in Burkina Faso. Photo: Ollivier Girard for Center for International Forestry Research

Migration is a valuable adaptation strategy under certain conditions, but when the world’s poorest regions experience crop failures from drought or other climate events, international migration decreases. Why do climate events lead to increased migration in some places, but decreased migration in others?

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A History of Data: Information Technology and the MPC

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Bethel University Professor of History Diana L. Magnuson is documenting the growth of the Minnesota Population Center. Believing that preserving institutional memory is vital, the Center is supporting Magnuson’s work to capture oral histories of past and present MPC faculty and staff.

This is the second in a three-part series, with oral histories from the information technology (IT) side of the MPC. For over 16 years, the IT staff has collaborated with the MPC research staff to recode and disseminate data, develop specialized software, and make research more efficient. The “secret sauce of the MPC” is the longstanding synergistic collaboration between IT and research staff.

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Conference Recap: Time Use Across the Life Course

Attendees from the recent Time Use Conference and Workshop in Maryland.

 

Over 100 students, faculty, and researchers gathered June 27 and 28, 2016 at the University of Maryland, College Park, for a conference on Time Use Across the Life Course,  funded by the Maryland Population Research Center at the University of Maryland and organized by Liana Sayer. Conference attendees came from the United States, Australia, Singapore, England, and Belgium.

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The Case of the Missing Prostitutes in Late 19th Century London

Image: Prostitutes offer their services in the Haymarket, engraving by an unnamed artist. From London Labour and the London Poor: Volume Four by Henry Mayhew.
Image: Prostitutes offer their services in the Haymarket, engraving by an unnamed artist. From London Labour and the London Poor: Volume Four by Henry Mayhew.

Where are all the prostitutes in the census records of London 1881? In her book, Prostitution and Victorian Society: Women Class and the State , Judith Walkowitz says that a 19th century city like London (where prostitution was legal) had one prostitute per 36 inhabitants. Based on the 1881 London population records, that amounts to about 24,000 prostitutes. The coded occupations in 1881 London data, however, show no signs of prostitutes anywhere.

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