IPUMS, originally the ''Integrated Public Use Microdata Series'', is the world's largest individual-level population database. IPUMS consists of microdata samples from

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

''(IPUMS-USA)'' and international ''(IPUMS-International)''

census A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...

records, as well as data from U.S. and international surveys. The records are converted into a consistent format and made available to researchers through a web-based data dissemination and analysis system. IPUMS is housed at the Institute for Social Research and Data Innovation (ISRDI), an interdisciplinary research center at the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota Twin Cities (historically known as University of Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint ...

, under the direction of Professor

Steven Ruggles Steven Ruggles (born May 8, 1955 - New Haven, Conn.) is Regents Professor of History and Population Studies at the University of Minnesota, and the director of the IPUMS Center for Data Integration. He is best known as the creator of IPUMS, the ...

Description

IPUMS includes all persons enumerated in the United States Censuses from

1850 Events January–March * January 29 – Henry Clay introduces the Compromise of 1850 to the United States Congress. * January 31 – The University of Rochester is founded in Rochester, New York. * January – Sacramento, Ca ...

1950 Events January * January 1 – The International Police Association (IPA) – the largest police organization in the world – is formed. * January 5 – 1950 Sverdlovsk plane crash, Sverdlovsk plane crash: ''Aeroflot'' Lisunov Li-2 ...

(though, the 1890 census is missing because it was destroyed in a fire) and from the

American Community Survey The American Community Survey (ACS) is an annual demographics survey program conducted by the United States Census Bureau. It regularly gathers information previously contained only in the long form of the United States census, decennial census ...

since 2000 and the

Current Population Survey The Current Population Survey (CPS) is a monthly survey of about 60,000 U.S. households conducted by the United States Census Bureau for the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The BLS uses the data to publish reports early each month called the Em ...

since 1962. IPUMS includes household-level data for United States Censuses from 1790 to

1840 Events January–March * January 3 – One of the predecessor papers of the ''Herald Sun'' of Melbourne, Australia, ''The Port Phillip Herald'', is founded. * January 10 – Uniform Penny Post is introduced in the United Kingdom. * Janu ...

, due to the first six censuses only including the name of the head of household, with tallied household totals following. IPUMS provides consistent variable names, coding schemes, and documentation across all the samples, facilitating the analysis of long-term change. IPUMS-International includes countries from Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America for 1960 forward. The database currently includes more than a billion individuals enumerated in 365 censuses from 94 countries around the world. IPUMS-International converts census microdata for multiple countries into a consistent format, allowing for comparisons across countries and time periods. Special efforts are made to simplify use of the data while losing no meaningful information. Comprehensive documentation is provided in a coherent form to facilitate comparative analyses of social and economic change. Additional databases in the IPUMS family include the: *

North Atlantic Population Project The North Atlantic Population Project (NAPP) is a collaboration of historical demographers in Britain, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden to produce a massive census microdata collection for the North Atlantic Region in the l ...

(NAPP) * IPUMS

National Historical Geographic Information System The National Historical Geographic Information System (NHGIS) is a historical GIS project to create and freely disseminate a database incorporating all available aggregate United States Census, census information for the United States between Uni ...

(NHGIS) * IPUMS Health Surveys * IPUMS Global Health * IPUMS Time Use The ''Journal of American History'' described the effort as "One of the great archival projects of the past two decades." Liens Socio, the French portal for the social sciences, gave IPUMS the only “best site” designation that has gone to any non-French website, writing “IPUMS est un projet absolument extraordinaire...époustouflante ind-blowing” The official motto of IPUMS is "use it for good, never for evil." All public IPUMS data and documentation are available online free of charge.

References

External links

* {{Official website, https://www.ipums.org/
Institute for Social Research and Data Innovation
Databases Demographics University of Minnesota