Browse 114 concepts used in the study of religion, review how survey researchers measured them in the past, and quickly compare the results of more than 7,600 survey questions.
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Examine the religious composition, religious freedoms, demographics, constitutional clauses, survey findings and multiple social and political measures for 250 nations.
View maps of the United States and individual states for hundreds of variables, including congregational membership, census data, crime statistics and many others.
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Browse dozens of topics from a major national survey of religious congregations. See how the responses vary by the size, religious family and region of the congregation.
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View maps of the United States and individual states for hundreds of variables, including congregational membership, census data, crime statistics and many others.
Harris, J., Martin, R. R., Montminy, S., & Finke, R. (2019, February 10). Cross-National Socio-Economic and Religion Data, 2011.
Summary
This file assembles data from the 2010 United Nations Human Development Report (HDR), the 2011 edition of the Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) World Factbook and ARDA researchers' coding of the 2008 US Department of State International Religious Freedom (IRF) report. It includes data on economic, social and demographic variables for 252 countries and nations around the world. This is an attempt to draw together numerous variables employed in cross-national research.
Data File
Cases: 253
Variables: 239
Weight Variable: None
Data Collection
Date Collected: May 2011 - June 2011 (UN and CIA data); September 2009 - February 2010 (IRF data)
The World Factbook is prepared by the Central Intelligence Agency for the use of US Government officials, and the style, format, coverage, and content are designed to meet their specific requirements. Information is provided by Antarctic Information Program (National Science Foundation), Armed Forces Medical Intelligence Center (Department of Defense), Bureau of the Census (Department of Commerce), Bureau of Labor Statistics (Department of Labor), Central Intelligence Agency, Council of Managers of National Antarctic Programs, Defense Intelligence Agency (Department of Defense), Department of Energy, Department of State, Fish and Wildlife Service (Department of the Interior), Maritime Administration (Department of Transportation), National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (Department of Defense), Naval Facilities Engineering Command (Department of Defense), Office of Insular Affairs (Department of the Interior), Office of Naval Intelligence (Department of Defense), US Board on Geographic Names (Department of the Interior), US Transportation Command (Department of Defense), Oil & Gas Journal, and other public and private sources.
Variables with names beginning with the prefix "UN" are derived from the United Nations Human Development Report, and variables with names beginning with the prefix "CIA" are derived from the CIA's World Factbook.
Principal Investigators
The Association of Religion Data Archives Jaime Harris, Project Manager for International Data Robert R. Martin, Research Associate Sarah Montminy, Research Assistant Roger Finke, Director
Note 1: CIA Measurement Years
Measures in the CIA's World Factbook were not all collected in the same year. This means that there is variation by country on when a particular variable was measured. The list of the variables derived from World Factbook data shown below identifies the range of years that a particular variable was measured across countries. For instance, the entry for CIAPOP11 (Total population) identifies that the earliest year that population was measured and reported for a country in the 2011 World Factbook was 2009 and that the most recent year population was measured for a country was 2011. If a variable is noted as having been measured in "2011-2011," all countries in the World Factbook were measured in the year 2011 on that variable.
Additional Information on Selected Variables - International Religious Freedom Reports
GRI2008 Government Regulation of Religion Index (Grim and Finke, 2006): Scale 0-10, lower score indicates less regulation
GFI2008 Government Favoritism of Religion Index (Grim and Finke, 2006): Scale 0-10, lower score indicates less favoritism
MSRI2008 Modified Social Regulation of Religion Index: Scale 0-10, lower score indicates less regulation. The Social Regulation of Religion Index (SRI) has been altered in this wave of coding. The Modified Social Regulation of Religion Index (MSRI) is calculated by (a) transforming a country's value on each of the five variables listed below so that they have ranges from zero to one, (b) taking the sum of the five transformed values and (c) multiplying the sum by two. Countries may have MSRI values between zero and ten.
Variables from the coding of 2008 International Religious Freedom Reports that comprise the Modified Social Regulation of Religion Index (MSRI): OTHREL08: Societal attitudes toward other or nontraditional religions are reported to be... PROSE208: According to the Report, do traditional attitudes and/or edits of the clerical establishment strongly discourage proselytizing, that is, trying to win converts? ESTAB08: According to the Report, do established or existing religions try to shut out new religions in any way? INTOLE08: According to the Report, are citizens intolerant of "nontraditional" faiths, that is, groups they perceive as new religions? NONTRA08: According to the Report, how does the Report characterize citizens' receptivity to proselytizing by nontraditional faiths or faiths other than their own?
Country-level values on each of the variables that make up the MSRI are available for download from the ARDA in the International Religious Freedom Data, 2008 file (see https://www.thearda.com/Archive/Files/Descriptions/IRF2008.asp). See Grim and Finke, 2006 for a detailed description of the original Social Regulation of Religion Index (SRI).
Additional Information on Selected Variables - United Nations Human Development Report
Much of the information below is reproduced from the Notes and Bibliography and Technical Notes sections of the 2010 UN Human Development Report. For more information, see the following link: http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr2010/chapters/
UNHDI80-UNHDIMP These variables report the UN Human Development Index (HDI), compare a country's score on the HDI to other countries' scores and describe change in scores on the HDI. The HDI is a
composite index measuring average achievement in three basic dimensions of human development: a long and healthy life (measured by life expectancy at birth), knowledge (measured by both mean and expected years of schooling) and a decent standard of living (measured by per capita Gross National Income, PPP US$).
UNINHDI Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index. This measure adjusts a country's HDI score based on its scores on three additional indexes: the inequality-adjusted life expectancy index, the inequality-adjusted education index and the inequality-adjusted income index.
UN_GINI Income Gini coefficient. This is a measure of the deviation of the distribution of income (or consumption) among individuals or households within a country from a perfectly equal distribution. A Lorenz curve plots the cumulative percentages of total income received against the cumulative number of recipients, starting with the poorest individual or household. The Gini index measures the area between the Lorenz curve and a hypothetical line of absolute equality, expressed as a percentage of the maximum area under the line. A value of zero represents absolute equality, a value of 100 absolute inequality.
UN_GII-UN_GII_R These variables report a country's score on the Gender Inequality Index and their rank among countries on this measure. The Gender Inequality Index is a composite index measuring loss in achievements in three dimensions of human development: reproductive health (measured by the maternal mortality ratio and the adolescent fertility rate), empowerment (measured by the female and male population with at least a secondary education and by the female and male shares of parliamentary seats) and the labor market due to inequality between genders (measured by female and male labor force participation rates).
UNMMORTR The maternal mortality ratio. This is a measure of the number of maternal deaths, expressed per 100,000 live births. Maternal death is defined as the death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days after terminating a pregnancy, regardless of the length and site of the pregnancy, due to any cause related to or aggravated by the pregnancy itself or its care but not due to accidental or incidental causes.
UNADFERT Adolescent fertility rate. This measures the number of births to women age 15 through 19, expressed per 1,000 women of the same age.
UN_CONTR Contraceptive prevalence rate, any method. This indicates the percentage of women of reproductive age (ages 15 through 49) who are using, or whose partners are using, any form of contraception, whether modern or traditional.
UNMPI Multidimensional Poverty Index. This indicates the share of the population that is multidimensionally poor adjusted by the intensity of the deprivations.
UNDRAT90-UNDRAT10 Dependency ratio per 100 people ages 15 through 64 in 1990 and 2010. The dependency ratio is the ratio of the population ages 0 through 14 and ages 65 and older to the working-age population (ages 15 through 64) as expressed as the number of dependents per 100 people ages 15 through 64.
UNTFR95-UNTFR15 Total and projected total fertility rate. The total fertility rate is the number of children that would be born to each woman if she were to live to the end of her child-bearing years and bear children at each age in accordance with prevailing age-specific fertility rates.
UNPRIM_G-UNTERT_G Gross and net enrollment ratios. The gross enrollment ratio is the total enrollment in a given level of education, regardless of age, expressed as a percentage of the official school-age population for the same level of education. The net enrollment ratio is the total enrollment in a given level of education of the official age for that level, expressed as a percentage of the total population of the same age group.
UNODA_T-UNODASOC Measures of official development assistance. Official development assistance is the disbursements of loans made on concessional terms (net of repayments of principal) and grants by official agencies of the members of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC), by multilateral institutions and by non-DAC countries to promote economic development and welfare in countries and territories in part I of the DAC list of aid recipients, expressed as a percentage of the recipient country's GNI. It includes loans with a grant element of at least 25 percent (calculated at a discount rate of 10 percent).
UNGDP-UNGDPGRO These variables report, compare or adjust a country's gross domestic product. The gross domestic product is the sum of value added by all resident producers in the economy plus any product taxes (less subsidies) not included in the valuation of output, calculated without making deductions for depreciation of fabricated capital assets or for depletion and degradation of natural resources. Value added is the net output of an industry after adding up all outputs and subtracting intermediate inputs. When expressed in US dollar terms, it is converted using the average official exchange rate reported by the International Monetary Fund. An alternative conversion factor is applied if the official exchange rate is judged to diverge by an exceptionally large margin from the rate effectively applied to transactions in foreign currencies and traded products. When expressed in purchasing power parity (PPP) US dollar terms, it is converted to international
dollars using PPP rates.n international dollar has the same purchasing power over GDP that the US dollar has in the United States. The gross domestic product per capita is expressed in US dollar terms, divided by mid-year population. When expressed as an average annual growth rate, the least squares annual growth rate is used with constant GDP per capita data in local currency units.
Additional Information on Selected Variables - The World Factbook (CIA)
CIATAREA-CIAWAREA Measures of country area in square kilometers. Total area is the sum of all land and water areas delimited by international boundaries and/or coastlines. Land area is the aggregate of all surfaces delimited by international boundaries and/or coastlines, excluding inland water bodies (lakes, reservoirs, rivers). Water area is the sum of the surfaces of all inland water bodies, such as lakes, reservoirs, or rivers, as delimited by international boundaries and/or coastlines.
CIAMIGR Net migration rate per 1,000 population. This measure describes the difference between the number of persons entering a country and the number of persons leaving that country during a year per 1,000 people in the mid-year population.
Fall 2012 Update
Note: This file was updated in 2012 to correct an error in the calculation of GRI2008. To view the earlier calculation of GRI2008 for replication purposes, please access the "Data from the ARDA National Profiles, 2011 Update: Religion Indexes, Adherents and Other Data" file.
