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DATA RESOURCES HOMECANADIAN AND INTERNATIONAL STATISTICSMAJOR RESEARCH DATA

Finding Canadian, U.S. and international research data

Introduction

This document outlines resources available to locate research data, in computer-readable form. In some cases, references are to collections of data file themselves; in other cases, references are to tools that assist you to locate data. Since excellent directory sites already exist which provide access to U.S. data, and to international data, this document concentrates on the location of Canadian data.

In these documents, 'microdata' refer to original unsummarized observations, normally in the original form/level of observation at which they were collected; users of these data are expected to have the expertise to perform their own statistical analyses using appropriate statistical software. 'Aggregate data' (or 'macrodata') refer to pre-summarized data, but at a very low level of aggregation, i.e. describe the characteristics of relatively small groups of observations; again, users are expected to have the expertise to manipulate these data using appropriate statistical software. 'Statistics' refer to compiled, i.e. pre-summarized data, which normally describe the characteristics of relatively large groups of observations, and can normally be used directly without additional statistical processing. For example, the actual answers given by each respondent to a survey are considered to be 'microdatadata', while the final count of males and the number of females who responded to that survey are 'statistics'.

The location of statistics on Canada is dealt with in another, parallel document: Finding Canadian, U.S. and international statistics.

In Canada, the federal government, and especially Statistics Canada, is the major collector of data. Thus there is an emphasis on Statistics Canada's products in this document.

Locations and access conditions, where restricted, in this document relate specifically to the University of Toronto. Most restricted data from Statistics Canada are available to Data Liberation Initiative (DLI) member institutions through their local contact. Prospective users with no DLI member institution affiliation should contact their local data service.

In the interests of brevity, for Canadian sites which contain both English and French language resources, only English language sources are given here; most Canadian federal government Internet sites and some provincial sites include links to parallel French-language resources.

Searching for data files by variable

There are currently three major sites which allow searching by variable, within Canadian microdata files. Each of these sites indexes a different subset of microdata, so it is best to search all three. Searching will allow you to determine the title(s) of the data file(s) you need. Then you will need to determine whether or not the University of Toronto Data Library Service has it, and how to access or request access to it.

Canadian microdata

In trying to track down Canadian data files, the most important question is "who collected it?". There are normally three possible answers: (a) the government (usually, but not always, Statistics Canada), (b) academic sector (usually funded by e.g. SSHRCC, MRC (now CIHR), or NSERC), or the private sector.

Who collected it?

Canadian data on special topics

Census of population

Climate and environment

Crime and justice

Elections

Families and gender

Financial & economic

Labour

Health

Income

Labour

Leisure

Miscellaneous

Public opinion

Religion

Time use

Canadian aggregate or macrodata

Under Construction

Canadian time-series data

Under Construction

International, United States, and other data sources:

Sources of international data

Sources of United States data

Sources of data on other countries

Sources of data on special topics