Women in Development Series

Investigator(s): U.S. Bureau of the Census

The United States Bureau of the Census initiated a series of studies on women in development in 1970 with data drawn primarily from national censuses, surveys, statistical abstracts, and international statistical compendia. References are also made in some cases to evaluative studies conducted by individual researchers, research teams, and the staff of the International Demographic Data Center of the Bureau. These data constitute the most recently available information at the time of collection. The aim of this data series was to provide a reliable, up-to-date, accessible database on women in development which can illuminate the discrepancies in the roles and status of women against those of men throughout the world in order to serve as a basis for the promotion of both intranational and international parity between the sexes. The studies that comprise the Women in Development series consist of national-level data concerning female/male differentials over a range of demographic and socio-economic variables. Wherever possible, the data are broken down by age and urban/rural residence to facilitate further analysis.

The series is cumulative and the data are presented in basic tabular format. Initially, the data tables were compiled for 69 developing nations from Asia, Latin America, Africa, and the Near East that were recipients of the United States Agency for International Development aid. The first collection, Women in Development, 1979-1980 (ICPSR 8053), included all the aid-recipient nations regardless of population size. Subsequently, data were compiled for all remaining nations of the world with a population of five million or more, and statistics for the original nations were updated to reflect more recent information. The second collection in the series, Women in Development IV, 1983 (ICPSR 8155), covered approximately 120 nations from Asia, the Pacific, Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, the Near East, North America, Europe, and the Soviet Union.