Designing for Families | Information Repository | Literature / Large Scale Family Statistics browse

This page should list sources of large-scale quantitative information on various aspects of family life. Continue adding to this (international resources particularly welcome!)

Pew Internet & American Life Project Report. "Data Tools." http://www.pewinternet.org/Data-Tools.aspx

A free, open, searchable database of all the questions and answers on any Pew Internet survey. Also contains frequently-updated trends and statistics.

Kennedy, T.L.M., Smith, A., Wells, A.T., and Wellman, B. "Networked Families." Pew Internet & American Life Project Report. Washington, D.C., 2008. http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/266/report_display.asp

A large-scale quantitative study of how families use technology to communicate and stay in touch.

Macgill, A. "Parent and Teen Internet Use." Pew Internet & American Life Project Report. Washington, D.C., 2007. http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2007/Parent-and-Teen-Internet-Use.aspx

Surveys of parents and teenagers to understand perception and practices of Internet use.

Jones, S. & Fox, S. "Generations Online in 2009" Pew Internet & American Life Project Report. Washington, D.C., 2009. http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2009/Generations-Online-in-2009.aspx

Describes the online practices of several generations of adult users, particularly interesting findings about the elderly.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. "American Time Use Survey". http://www.bls.gov/tus/

An overview of how American families spend their time and money. There's actually also a few international comparisons available as well.

U.S. Census Bureau. "United States Data Sets American FactFinder." http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/DatasetMainPageServlet

Free access to the questions and data from the U.S. Census and other government surveys with tools for running specific queries and comparisons.

U.S. Census Bureau. "Families and Living Arrangements." http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/hh-fam.html

Most up-to-date statistics on family living arrangements in the US.

U.S. Census Bureau. "Computer Use and Ownership". Current Population Reports. http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/computer.html

Stats on computer use and Internet penetration in the U.S.

U.S. Census Bureau. "International Population Reports." http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/publist.html

US take on some global issues. Most stats are pretty basic, but the reports on global aging may be interesting.