Subject Guides: Law: Social Data & Statistics

Economic and social data sources

All of the online data collections which the Library subscribes to are listed on the E-resources Guide Datasets and Statistics list.

Zanran

Zanran helps you find semi-structured data which is free-to-access on the Web, e.g. graphs, tables and charts.

Try a search on e.g. crime uk to see the kind of results that are identified.

Google Public Data Explorer

Use a Google interface to customise and visualize data from free-to-access sources.

Quick reference sources

Quick reference publications provide snapshots of recent social and economic data about countries and regions. This type of resource is not suitable if you wish to investigate how an issue has changed over time.

OECD Factbook

Published annually by the OECD to collate economic and social data about member states and additional major countries. Summary data is presented in tables which can also be downloaded as Excel spreadsheets. Approx. 10 years’ historical data in most cases.
CIA World Factbook

Annual almanac of country profiles primarily to support US foreign policy institutions. Only the current year’s data is available. Country ranking data (i.e. fourth highest population in the world) is provided for many variables. Free-to-access on the CIA's website.

UK statistics

OECD iLibrary can be used to obtain data about the UK (and other EU countries). However, the most in-depth collection of social and economic statistics about the UK is free-to-access on the National Statistics website, maintained by the state-run Office of National Statistics.

National Statistics (Office for National Statistics) This link opens in a new window
The website of the UK Office for National Statistics. Site includes full texts of the latest press releases (plus a searchable archive); and a substantial collection of free-to-access online statistical publications, such as "The Official Yearbook of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland", "Social Trends", "United Kingdom Economic Accounts", and others (usually most recent edition only). Also Census 2001, and the newly developed Neighbourhood Statistics service, providing access to "a vast range of social and economic aggregate data on a consistent small-area geography" (searchable by postcode).

Accessibility information

European Union statistics

Social and economic datasets for all EU member states are usually freely-available online from the appropriate government institution.

Sources which enable you to easily compare results from different countries include:

Eurostat

The European Commission’s official portal to publicly-available social and economic data about EU member states. English, German or French-language interface available. Data is displayed in pre-formatted tables which can be downloaded into Excel or SPSS. You can customise the variables displayed before downloading.

International data collections

When undertaking a research project in the social sciences, you may require evidence from published social or economic datasets to support your assertions. Perhaps you need to compare several variables over time in order to draw conclusions about the relationships between them, or gather all the available data about a country or region to inform your analysis of the political, economic or social situation.

To support your research, the University of York Library subscribes to OECD iLibrary. In addition to these sources, UK higher education users have access to data on the UK Data Service (free of charge).

OECD iLibrary Statistics This link opens in a new window
26 statistical databases from the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development). Coverage includes national accounts, economic indicators, financial affairs, social expenditure, and further series relating to industry, agriculture, energy, employment, health, migration, development and aid, for all 30 OECD member countries and other major economies.

Each data series has a searchable abstract indicating origin, start date, periodicity, content etc. Data tables can be constructed according to your own specifications for viewing online, then exported into a spreadsheet package for further processing.

For information about OECD Health Data, please see the separate entry.
UK Data Service This link opens in a new window
To access data you will need to create a personal account.
Consolidates and integrates four services established and funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC): the Economic and Social Data Service (ESDS), the Secure Data Service, the Survey Question Bank and elements of the ESRC Census Programme.

The UK Data Service provides a unified point of access to more than 6,000 collections of high quality social and economic data, including UK Census data, government-funded surveys, longitudinal studies, international macrodata, qualitative data and business microdata.

For help with this resource, take a look at our Quick Guide.

Accessibility information

Other statistical sources

data.gov.uk
Designed for the general public, "to help people understand how government works and how policies are made". All publicly-released UK government data in one searchable website.
The Guardian Data Store
Data relating to recent news events.