Centre for Demographic and Ageing Research/Demographic Data Base (CEDAR)

CEDAR offers access to longitudinal population data on the individual level, from a large number of Swedish parishes in the Arctic area 1680-1950, along with Swedish parish statistics 1749-1859.

The information in databases POPUM and POPLINK is gathered from the Swedish parish records, with detailed longitudinal data about individuals, families and households. Data on the individual level includes basic demographic information along with data about occupation, place of residence, migration, kinship and health. The data is linked, which makes it well suited to longitudinal and intergenerational studies. POPUM covers population data from c. 100 parishes from 1680-1900, and is one of the largest and most detailed historical population databases in the world. POPLINK includes data from c.1680-1950 for c. 20 northern parishes. The database is still under constructions and its geographical scope is continuously widened with new data. It is also constructed in a way that facilitates linkage to official registers and modern research databases.

The database TABVERK includes parish statistics from all Swedish parishes 1749-1859, as reported to the national statistical agency Tabellverkskommissionen. This is considered as the world’s earliest population statistics and the data allow studies of fertility, mortality, nuptiality and migrations from a historical point of view, distributed by sex, age, civil status and social status. 

Institution Umeå University
Country Sweden
Infrastructure type On-line collection or database
Disciplines Language and literature
History and archaeology
Sociology and cultural studies
Political science and civics
Library
information and archive
Health and medicine
Language of operation Swedish
English
Keywords statisticsparish statisticslongitudal datapopulation datademographylife-coursehistory

Availability

The infrastructure is open to researchers within all disciplines, nationally and internationally. Access to 20th century data in POPLINK is subject to certain restrictions, requiring approval from an ethical vetting board (EPN). User fees are applied. The total cost of a data retrieval depends upon its size and complexity. Before ordering data, researchers are recommended to get in touch with the CEDAR staff for a discussion of how the requested dataset best can be specified and structured.

Contact information

Maria J Wisselgren, maria.wisselgren@umu.se

+4690-786 50 54

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