Because population research is data-intensive, our centers provide affiliates and their GSRs consulting, advice, assistance, and training in finding and optimizing the use of data sets and statistical software for data analysis, directly and in collaboration with other specialized units on campus.

Data Services

For assistance with accessing or utilizing any of our specialized data sets, or publicly available data, there are two sources of support. The first is the Demography Department Computing Support (demographyit@berkeley.edu), who can provide access to the Department of Demography Computing Center computing resources for large and complex data analyses, software support and more.

The second source are the data experts at Berkeley’s D-Lab, who are available for consultation on a myriad of topics related to the identification and use of data.  They can help to:

• Find suitable data sets for research, for example, which data set has both work and family career histories?
• Prepare data into system-readable files for SPSS, SAS, STATA, or pooling multiple waves of panel studies.
• Extract a subset of a larger data set.
• Provide access to printed codebooks for reviewing ease. The D-lab has a library of printed codebooks of many datasets.
• Prepare requests for and make accessible the use of US Census and survey private use micro-data.
• Provide training workshops on data and research use.
• Work with faculty who have their own data that they would like to make available to the research public.
• Classes on software, e.g., Python, R, webscraping and so muh more.

Data Sets

Below are some of the data sets developed by affiliates in Population Sciences and represent key data resources available to the public. The Demography Department Computing Lab offers support for use of these data. If you are an affiliate and wish to add a link to your data and project, please let us know.

• Census Mosaic Project
• CHAMACOS longitudinal birth cohort study of pesticide exposure
• Complete Count US Census data (by agreement with Minnesota Population Center)
• Costa Rican Longevity and Healthy Aging Study (CRELES)
• “HMD”, The Human Mortality Data Base
• Human Fertility Database
• National Transfer Accounts Database 
• UC Croatia Project
• UCNets: The UC Berkeley Social Networks Study
• UC Prussia Project
• United States Mortality Database

Data Collection

Contact the Popcenter Executive Director for information about consulting on a variety of aspects of survey research: 

• Sampling
• Questionnaire design
• Calculating a budget for data collection
• Suitable vendors for data collection
• Differences between mail, internet, phone and face-to-face methods
• Various qualitative research practices, and mixed methods and multi-methods