Resources for Research

Megasites

Statistical Resources on the Web from the University of Michigan Documents Center is THE best place to find links to statistical sites. The site is arranged in broad subject areas, including consumers, health, education, military, sociology, politics, and several more. Look for statistics on Adoption, Aging, Child Abuse, Children, Crime, Divorce, Domestic Violence, Entitlements/Grants, Ethnicity, Homeless, Immigration, Language, Marriage, Non-Profit Organizations, Poverty, Race, Refugees, Religion, Social Security, Wealth, and Comprehensive Sources in the Sociology section.

Data on the Net from Univ. of California at San Diego offers a search feature to bring up relevant sites.

The Census Bureau (U.S.) site offers a variety of documents. Documents on the site can be searched by keyword. (Try "women," "gender," "mothers," etc.) The Bureau's "Women in the United States" page suggests using American FactFinder, the Bureau's data retrieval system, and various reports listed and described on "Products on Gender (Sex)". Some Census 2000 Publications pointed to from this page include Gender: 2000 and other Census 2000 Briefs containing information on sex, PHC-T-11: Male-Female Ratio by Race Alone or in Combination and Hispanic or Latino Origin in the United States: 2000 and other PHC-T’s containing information on sex, and We the People: Women and Men in the United States (CENSR-20). See also Women in the United States: March 2000 (PPL-121), issued in March, 2001. There is a press release that summarizes this report. Use the "Women" sections of news releases to find other releases, listed in reverse chronological order. The Census Bureau also mounts an International Data Base (IDB) with data from 227 countries on population, number of births per mother, contraceptive use, literacy, etc.

CountryWatch is a commercial database (link will only work from UW-Madison -- check your local library for availability) that provides country-specific data. The "Social Overview" category for each country includes "Status of Women."

Current Index to Statistics is a commercial product (link will only work from UW-Madison -- check your local library for availability) that is a database of the applied and theoretical statistical literature. It allows you to do keyword searches of dozens of statistics and methodology journals.

Eldis, a gateway to information on economic development and related topics, has a Gender Resources Guide, with a quick link to statistics-laden documents, articles, etc.

Fedstats is a gateway to statistics from over 100 U.S. Federal agencies. It is searchable by topic, agency, or state, and includes a statistical reference shelf of online stats. collections. The topic "women" is subdivided into health, job patterns in private industry, retirement security, (see also "Women and Retirement Security," 1998) and women-owned businesses.

The General Social Survey for the U.S. and the International Social Survey Programme and its data center for numerous countries provide survey research data on social issues.

Gender-Specific

The American Woman on the Web: A Statistical Portrait, edited by Anne J. Stone, is the continuation of what used to be published every two years in print form as The American Woman, by the Women's Research & Education Institute. The site contains statistics on education, health, employment, earnings and benefits, and economic Security (poverty).

Genderstats from the World Bank is searchable by country.

Gender Statistics Website for Europe and North America is compiled by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. The Statistics Online section of the site links to a Gender Statistics site, including a Gender Statistics Database of sex-disaggregated social data, Trends in Europe and North America: The Statistical Yearbook of the Economic Commission for Europe 2005, and other databases.

WIDNET: Women in Development Network offers regional and country-by-country population, family, household, health, education, labor, and political power information extracted from statistics compiled by the International Labour Organization, the UN, and other sources (statistics are from the 1990s).

WomenWatch gateway to United Nations information "Statistics and Indicators" page

By Topic or Location

Abortion Surveillance data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is found in the CDC's Reproductive Health: Data and Statistics section. As of February, 2007, Abortion Surveillance data were available through 2003, including the fulltext of the 2003 report. For links by year, see the Abortion section of the Reproductive Health: Data and Statistics site.

Center for Women's Business Research has figures for national and state-by-state figures on women-owned businesses

Finding Data On Women: A Guide to Major Sources at Statistics Canada is a downloadable document that assists researchers.

Prevalence of contraceptive use, by method and by age, is available for numerous countries through the U.S. Census Bureau's International Data Base.

Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics Online from the University at Albany contains data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Search by keyword "sex" to find tables that include a breakdown by gender, or browse the criminal justice categories. Some of the specific documents from the Bureau of Justice Statistics include Sexual Victimization of College Women (2000), Correctional Populations in the U.S., 1997 (issued in Fall 2000), which contains tables broken down by gender, Women Offenders (12/99), and Rape and Sexual Assault: Reporting to Police and Medical Attention, 1992-2000 (8/2002). For additional titles, visit the BJS publications page.

The Economic Policy Institute is a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank that "seeks to broaden the public debate about strategies to achieve a prosperous and fair economy." Site includes data and analysis, especially from public opinion polls. Click on search and search the terms "women" and "gender" in the "virtual library" section for briefing papers, studies, and working papers from the Institute.

Trends in Educational Equity of Girls & Women (2004), from the National Center for Education Statistics, "examines the extent to which males and females have access to the same educational opportunities, avail themselves equally of these opportunities, perform at similar levels throughout schooling, succeed at similar rates, and reap the same benefits from their educational experiences." NCES publishes an annual Digest of Education Statistics. For recent stats. on undergraduates, see Gender Differences in Participation and Completion of Undergraduate Education and How They Have Changed (Feb., 2005). To find NCES publications by relevant subject, browse the subject "women's educational equity."

The National Science Foundation has a report on Women, Minorities and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering (2007)

UNESCO has a Global Education Online (GED) database from which one can find enrollment figures by gender (database uses "male" and "female") by level of schooling and country. The Statistical section from UNESCO's Education for All Global Monitoring Report 2003/4, Gender and Education for All, The Leap to Equality (2003/4) has downloadable spreadsheets for tables on topics including Adult and Youth Literacy, Early Childhood Care and Education, Participation in Secondary and Post-Secondary Education, Tertiary Education: Field of Study (%) and Female Share, and more.

Center for Demography and Ecology of the University of Wisconsin-Madison publishes numerous Working Papers on cohabitation, fertility and childbearing, and other topics, from the Center's National Survey of Families and Households. Interviews were conducted in 1987-88, 1992-94, and 2001-2003.

Demographic and Health Surveys Program, funded by the USAID, conducts national surveys on fertility, family planning, maternal and child health and household living conditions.

Age-specific fertility rates and number of births per mother for numerous countries are also available through the U.S. Census Bureau's International Data Base.

Women's Health Databook annual compilation since 2002 from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Maternal and Child Health Bureau, includes Databooks from 2005 and 2006 (not all topics are repeated each year).

National Center for Health Statistics has a "FastStats A-Z" page for Women's Health and tables and figures on women's health from Health United States 2005 that cover various health issues, health care, health expenditures, and more.

Women's Health Data Book, edited by Dawn Misra, is a joint project of the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Jacobs Institute of Women's Health. Third ed., 2001, is on the website in pdf (236p.) Kaiser also has a statistics on numerous Women's Health Facts, by state, including such topics as rates for mammograms; births to teen; sexually-transmitted diseases, by gender; and information on mandated health benefits.

Women of Color Health Data Book: Adolescents to Seniors, 2006 comes from the U.S. Office of Research on Women's Health, Office of the Director, National Institutes of Health. Previous data books were issued in 1998 and 2002.

Women's Health in Wisconsin 2008 provides Wisconsin-specific data on a range of women's health issues. It comes from the Wisconsin Women's Health Foundation.

Historical U.S. Census Data Browser. Site mounted by Paul Bergen, Harvard U., made available with the cooperation and consent of the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), in Ann Arbor, Michigan, original creators of the data sets. Includes statistics from the 1790-1970 counts.

Women's Bureau, U.S. Dept. of Labor: Women in the Labor Force: A Databook (88 p., 2005)and Women's Bureau Statistics and Data (quick facts, 2004).

The Department for Professional Employees of the AFL-CIO Labor Federation has a 2008 Fact Sheet "Professional Women: Vital Statistics".

Literacy data, by country, divided by sex, is one of the categories available through the U.S. Census Bureau's International Data Base.

Statistics on Gender Equality in the Nordic Countries, document from NIKK: Nordic Institute for Women's Studies and Gender Research.

The Inter-Parliamentary Union offers data on women in national parliaments.

OnlineWomeninPolitics.org (the Asia Pacific Online Network of Women in Politics, Governance and Transformative Leadership) statistics page gathers links to women's participation in politics, governance, and decision-making.

Polling data are available through the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, which includes many archived studies and links to other survey research organizations, and PollingReport.com, an independent, nonpartisan resource on American public opinion, published in Washington, D.C. Some of the polls include breakdowns by gender. Europa Public Opinion Analysis offers summaries and reports of polling surveys sponsored by the European Commission since 1973.

Population Reference Bureau's Gender section includes excerpts and summaries of demographic reports from this nonprofit organization. A new report is "Feminization of Migration: Limits of Data" (February 2007).

Poverty-Related links, by category, such as "aging and retirement," "disability," and "homelessness," on the Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison Institute for Research on Poverty site.

Rape/Sexual Assault: The National Sexual Violence Resource Center is a comprehensive clearinghouse for sexual assault information and statistics.The U.S. Dept. of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics collects much data, particularly on reported incidents. There is a search box on the site. However, the search retrieves every table or mention of the term searched, and it may be better to find specific reports through the publications page. Example of report: Rape and Sexual Assault: Reporting to Police and Medical Attention, 1992-2000 (8/2002). See also the Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics, the Office of Violence Against Women and the Arizona Rape and Sexual Assault Surveillance Project conducted by the University of Arizona Prevention Center.

Reproductive Health: Data and Statistics is a section of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website. Topics include maternal health, hysterectomy, abortion, etc.

The Institute for Women's Policy Research has a Status of Women in the States project that issues reports. The latest (2004) is "Women's Economic Status in the States: Wide Disparities by Race, Ethnicity, and Region." It assesses five key areas: women’s earnings, the gender wage ratio, the percent of women in managerial and professional occupations, women’s business ownership, and women’s poverty. The 2002 report assessed nine states in depth (Alabama, Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts, Missouri, Rhode Island, South Carolina, West Virginia, and Wisconsin) and provided national information concerning political participation, employment and earnings, economic autonomy, reproductive rights, and health and well-being. The 2000 report assessed nine states in depth (Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Hawai'i, Indiana, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and Tennessee) along the same dimensions.

Brief Guide to Gender Statistics indicates where the main sources of gender-related statistical information for the United Kingdom can be found in print and other formats.

Office on Violence Against Women, U.S. Dept. of Justice links to various statistics from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, including Violence Against Women: Estimates from the Resdesigned National Crime Vicitimization Survey.

VAWNET has data sets concerning Violence Against Women. See also Evaluating Violence Against Women Research Reports, by Sandra K. Beeman, which provides guidelines on how to read and evaluate different kinds of research studies.

Violence and Abuse article links from the Minnesota Center Against Violence and Abuse (some include statistics).

WisStat is a "is a one-stop shop for Wisconsin data," maintained by the University of Wisconsin Extension.