CPEDB (Comparative Political Economy Database) Main Dataset and Documentation

The Comparative Political Economy Database (CPEDB) began at the Centre for Learning, Social Economy and Work (CLSEW) at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto (OISE/UT) as part of the Changing Workplaces in a Knowledge Economy (CWKE) project. This data base was initially conceived and developed by Dr. Wally Seccombe (independent scholar) and Dr. D.W. Livingstone (Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto). Seccombe has conducted internationally recognized historical research on evolving family structures of the labouring classes (A Millennium of Family Change: Feudalism to Capitalism in Northwestern Europe and Weathering the Storm: Working Class Families from the Industrial Revolution to the Fertility Decline). Livingstone has conducted decades of empirical research on class and labour relations. A major part of this research has used the Canadian Class Structure survey done at the Institute of Political Economy (IPE) at Carleton University in 1982 as a template for Canadian national surveys in 1998, 2004, 2010 and 2016, culminating in Tipping Point for Advanced Capitalism: Class, Class Consciousness and Activism in the ‘Knowledge Economy’ (https://fernwoodpublishing.ca/book/tipping-point-for-advanced-capitalism) and a publicly accessible data base including all five of these Canadian surveys (https://borealisdata.ca/dataverse/CanadaWorkLearningSurveys1998-2016). Seccombe and Livingstone have collaborated on a number of research studies that recognize the need to take account of expanded modes of production and reproduction. Both Seccombe and Livingstone are Research Associates of CLSEW at OISE/UT.

The CPEDB Main File (an SPSS data file) covers the following areas (in order): demography, family/household, class/labour, government, electoral democracy, inequality (economic, political & gender), health, environment, internet, macro-economic and financial variables. In its present form, it contains annual data on 725 variables from 12 countries (alphabetically listed): Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, Norway, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom and United States. A few of the variables date back to 1928, and the majority date from 1960 to 1990. Where these years are not covered in the source, a minority of variables begin with more recent years. All the variables end at the most recent available year (1999 to 2022). In the next version developed in 2025, the most recent years (2023 and 2024) will be added whenever they are present in the sources’ datasets. For researchers who are not using SPSS, refer to the Chart files for overviews, summaries and information on the dataset.

For a current list of the variable names and their labels in the CPEDB data base, see the excel file: Outline of SPSS file Main CPEDB, Nov 6, 2023. At the end of each variable label in this file and the SPSS datafile, you will find the source of that variable in a bracket. If I have combined two variables from a given source, the bracket will begin with WS and then register the variables combined. In the 14 variables David created at the beginning of the Class Labour section, you will find DWL in these brackets with his description as to how it was derived.

The CPEDB’s variables have been derived from many databases; the main ones are OECD (their Statistics and Family Databases), World Bank, ILO, IMF, WHO, WIID (World Income Inequality Database), OWID (Our World in Data), Parlgov (Parliaments and Governments Database), and V-Dem (Varieties of Democracy).

The Institute for Political Economy at Carleton University is currently the main site for continuing refinement of the CPEDB. IPE Director Justin Paulson and other members are involved along with Seccombe and Livingstone in further development and safe storage of this updated database both at the IPE at Carleton and the UT dataverse. All those who explore the CPEDB are invited to share their perceptions of the entire database, or any of its sections, with Seccombe generally ([e-mail]) and Livingstone for class/labour issues ([e-mail]). They welcome any suggestions for additional variables together with their data sources. A new version CPEDB will be created in the spring of 2025 and installed as soon as the revision is completed. This revised version is intended to be a valuable resource for researchers in all of the included countries as well as Canada.