Social Science Data and Statistics Resources

The Center for Population Research in LGBT Health is housed at The Fenway Institute at Fenway Community Health in Boston. The Center is a joint endeavor of The Fenway Institute, Boston University's School of Public Health and the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), the global leader in social science research data archiving and accessibility. A five-year Population Research Development Grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development within the National Institutes of Health, awarded to The Fenway Institute in 2007, established the Center.
Although data is not available through ICPSR, a helpful bibliography is available and interested parties should contact data owners for details in obtaining datasets.

Reports, databases and archives relating to gender equality and women's human rights

The Social Institutions and Gender Index is an innovative measure of underlying discrimination against women for over 100 countries. While other indices measure gender inequalities in outcomes such as education and employment, the SIGI helps policy-makers and researchers understand what drives these outcomes. The SIGI captures and quantifies discriminatory social institutions - these include among others, early marriage, discriminatory inheritance practices, violence against women, son bias, restrictions on access to public space and restricted access to productive resources.

Data at the country level are organized under thematic headings, which are aligned to the themes identified by the Inter-agency and Expert Group on Gender Statistics (economic structures/ access to resources; education; health and related services; public life and decision-making; and human rights of women and girl children).
The portal includes gender datasets from the United Nations(UN) compiled by its Regional Commissions and Sectoral Agencies, as well as World Bank conducted or funded surveys and reports, such as the 2012 World Development Report (WDR) on Gender and Development. The data available should enable assessment of Bank funding of gender-informed activities , as well as monitoring of country progress on key development agendas such as the Millennium Development Goals, IDA 16 and the Bank’s Corporate Scorecard.

The GSS contains a standard 'core' of demographic, behavioral, and attitudinal questions, plus topics of special interest. Many of the core questions have remained unchanged since 1972 to facilitate time-trend studies as well as replication of earlier findings. The GSS takes the pulse of America, and is a unique and valuable resource. It has tracked the opinions of Americans over the last four decades.

The Guttmacher Institute’s new Global Abortion Incidence Dataset gathers annual abortion statistics for more than 100 countries — for as many years between 1990 and 2018 as possible. The dataset also indicates the sources for the figures, “whether spontaneous abortions are included, whether or not the data are considered complete and the reason behind it, the marital status of the sample for studies and surveys,” and more

Annual report from the World Economic Forum with country-by-country listings for numerous indicators.

Guide maintained by Drexel University professor, Dr. Randall Sell. Very good coverage of major data sources in LGBT research.

Some useful datasets include:
Women and Family Project 1991-1996
Federal Sexual Harassment Survey
Women in Nontraditional and Traditional Blue Collar Occupations 1975-1978
Gender and Latina Politics in Boston
Application may need to be made directly to the Murray Research Archive for permission to use the data.

From the Guttmacher Institute

To help address the crime of sexual assault within the Military, the Department of Defense and the military Services conduct comprehensive sexual assault assessments and issue reports.

Compiles qualitative and quantitative data "on over 310 indicators of women's status in 174 countries". Users must register in order to use the database.

World and regional averages of the percentage of women in national parliaments.

Information on women's inclusion in parliamentary bodies in over 150 countries from 1945 to 2003. Allows for extensive, large-scale, cross-national investigation of the factors that explain women's attainment of political power over time and provides educators with comprehensive international and historical information on women in a variety of political positions. Information is provided on female suffrage, the first female member of parliament, yearly percentages of women in parliaments, when women reached important representational milestones, such as 10 %, 20 %, and 30 % of a legislature, and when women achieved highly-visible political positions, such as prime minister, president, or head of parliament.

The Center for Population Research in LGBT Health is housed at The Fenway Institute at Fenway Community Health in Boston. The Center is a joint endeavor of The Fenway Institute, Boston University's School of Public Health and the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), the global leader in social science research data archiving and accessibility. A five-year Population Research Development Grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development within the National Institutes of Health, awarded to The Fenway Institute in 2007, established the Center.
Although data is not available through ICPSR, a helpful bibliography is available and interested parties should contact data owners for details in obtaining datasets.

Guide maintained by Drexel University professor, Dr. Randall Sell. Very good coverage of major data sources in LGBT research.