Princeton European Fertility Project:
Demographic Data

In 1980, Dr. Roy Treadway produced two data files for the provinces studied in the Princeton European Fertility Project.

• Master Data File
• 30-Year Summary File

Both files contain the four fertility indices I_f, I_g, I_h, I_m; the master file also contains other basic demographic indicators where available, e.g., population size, the infant mortality rate (IMR), singulate mean age at marriage (SMAM), proportions ever-married by a given age, and proportion urban.

Master Data File

The master data file is organized hierarchically, with data for the entire country, followed by data for provinces or smaller districts within the country. Some countries also have a further breakdown into urban and rural regions within the district.

Each of the areas (entire country or smaller district) has a "title" record, containing the name of the area and other summary information. This is followed by a varying number of records containing the available data at various dates. If there are records for urban and rural areas, the data first have all the years for the total population of an area, followed by all the years for the urban population, and finally all the years for the rural population. There is no indication in the title record of the number of years of data following, nor whether there are records for urban and rural areas. In cases where urban/rural breakdowns are available only in certain years or certain provinces, the urban and rural records are still included for each province in each year, with blanks or zeros coded in the data.

Some countries have more than one "series" of data, based mainly on boundary differences. For example, Series 0 for Austria contains data from 1880-1910, while Series 1 contains data from 1931 to 1960, reflecting the changes in the Austrian borders following World War I. Denmark has two series of data, both containing data from 1852-1960; Series 0 has data aggregated into 24 provinces, while Series 1 has data aggregated in 10 larger regions. A list of all the countries, and a summary of the data available for each, is available here.

Thirty Year Summary File

This file contains a one-record summary of some of the data in the master file for each country and for each smaller district within the country. The fertility indices are given (where available) at four points in time. The time points shown are the years closest to 1870, 1900, 1930 and 1960. A list of the countries and the actual years used is available here.

Availability of Data and Codebooks

The data and codebooks, as well as extensive notes and lists of country-specific codes, are available.

• Master File: the zipped archive can be retrieved by clicking here. The codebook may be viewed online by clicking here.
  
• Thirty-Year File: the zipped archive can be retrieved by clicking here. The codebook may be viewed online by clicking here.
  
• List of All Files: a list of all archived PEFP files is available here.