IPUMS-International: Making Confidentialized, Harmonized Census Microdata for 44 Countries Available Free-of-Charge to Academic and Policy Researchers World-Wide

Thanks to cooperative undertakings with national statistical agencies world-wide and to sustained funding by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health of the United States, over the next five years the University of Minnesota Population Center is extending the IPUMS-International project to 44 countries, including at least 7 Commonwealth nations. Presently, 28 anonymized, integrated census microdata samples for 8 countries, totaling more than 122 million unit records, are available at no cost to accredited researchers on a restricted-access basis from https://www.ipums.org/international. This paper briefly summarizes the confidentiality protocols, harmonization methodology, and uses of the database over the first 33 months of operation. Commonwealth producers and users of census microdata are invited to contribute to and benefit from this global initiative.