A global dataset of 7 billion individuals with socio-economic characteristics
Scientific Data volume 11, Article number: 1096 (2024 ) Cite this article
In global impact modeling, there is a need to address the heterogeneous characteristics of households and individuals that drive different behavioral responses to, for example, environmental risk, socio-economic policy changes and spread of diseases. In this research, we present GLOPOP-S, the first global synthetic population dataset with 1,999,227,130 households and 7,335,881,094 individuals for the year 2015, consistent with population statistics at an administrative unit 1 level. GLOPOS-S contains the following attributes: age, education, gender, income/wealth, settlement type (urban/rural), household size, household type, and for selected countries in the Global South, ownership of agricultural land and dwelling characteristics. To generate GLOPOP-S, we use microdata from the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) and Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) and apply synthetic reconstruction techniques to fit national survey data to regional statistics, thereby accounting for spatial differences within and across countries. Additionally, we have developed methods to generate data for countries without available microdata. The dataset can be downloaded per region or country. GLOPOP-S is open source and can be extended with other attributes.
In recent decades, several continental- to global-scale socio-economic impact assessment models have been developed to investigate the societal effects of, for example, diseases1 (e.g., Balcan et al.1), transport systems2, food security3, energy consumption4, water quality5, and weather extremes6. By simulating the current and future projections of societal impacts, such large-scale models can be used to assess how societies may respond to (increasing) socio-economic and environmental risk. For example, integrated assessment models can provide insights into how sustainable development policies may reduce carbon emissions by providing a quantitative description of key processes in human and earth systems and their interactions7.
