Measuring Social Acceleration [Dataset]

This dataset was used for measuring social acceleration as detailed in the research article 'Measuring Social Acceleration: A comparative, longitudinal analysis of acceleration in contemporary democracies' by Emil Meyer-Hansen and Kees van Kersbergen. The dataset contains 608 observations and 212 variables. It is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC-BY-NC-SA-4.0) and is provided in comma separated value (.csv) format and the Excel (.xlsx) format. Details about this dataset (including a README) are provided as metadata. The 608 observations are spread across 8 countries and 33 years. The eight countries are the Kingdom of Denmark (Denmark), the Republic of Estonia (Estonia), the Federal Republic of Germany (Germany), the Republic of India (India), the Kingdom of the Netherlands (Netherlands), the Swiss Confederation (Switzerland), the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (UK), and the United States of America (US). The 33 years are from the period 1993 to 2025. The 212 variables are heavily processed and summarized variables taken from the European Social Survey (ESS, 2012; 2018; 2023a; 2023b; 2023c; 2023d; 2023e; 2023f; 2025a; 2025b; 2025c), World Values Survey (WVS; Inglehart et al., 2022), Multinational Time-Use Study (MTUS; Centre for Time Use Research, 2026; Lamote de Grignon Pérez et al., 2025), various sources made accessible through the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD; Ballon & Alburqueque, 2024; International Telecommunication Union, 2026; OECD, 2026a, 2026b, 2026c, 2026d, 2026e, 2026f, 2026g, 2026h, 2026i, 2026j; UNICEF, 2026), and the World Bank Group (WBG, 2026a; 2026b; 2026c; 2026d; 2026e; 2026f). The variables were processed through recodings, missing value imputation, and summarization (e.g., arithmetic mean, Pearson skewness). The data sources are detailed in the metadata. Scripts for replicating the data collection for the OECD and WBG, as well as processing the data from the ESS, WVS, and MTUS, are provided as metadata. The specific seed to promote reproducibility of random number generation (RNG) are similarly provided as metadata, as well as the script used to generate it. All scripts are written in the R programming language (R Core Team, 2025). For software specifications, see the appendices of the aforementioned research article. To reproduce the data from scratch, the data processing scripts can be run in arbitrary order as long as the 'Data - Data Merging_v2026-04-10' is run last. Note that the original data by these organizations are not provided here due to licensing restrictions, and reproduction of this dataset thus requires the user to individually download the datasets (i.e., the ESS, WVS, and MTUS) through the respective organizations. Take also note that parts of the data collection for the OECD and WBG currently do not appear 100% reproducible due to dataset changes by these organizations (see the corresponding files in the metadata for details). Declarations Acknowledgements. The author(s) would like to thank the Sikt – Norwegian Agency for Shared Services in Education and Research, the Centre for Time Use Research (CTUS), and the World Values Survey Association Secretariat for granting permission to license and distribute the heavily processed version of their corresponding datasets. Author Contributions. Emil Meyer-Hansen was responsible for data curation, formal analysis, investigation, software, validation, and visualization. Kees van Kersbergen was responsible for funding acquisition, project administration, resources, and supervision. Grant Information. The creation of this dataset was funded by the European Union (ERC, SLOMODEMO, 101198983). It specifically constitutes the data for the deliverable 'Work Package 1: Theorizing, Operationalizing, and Measuring Social Acceleration'. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Council. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them. Use of Generative AI tools. The author(s) used the Claude Opus (v4.6 - v5) GenAI tool by Anthropic (2026) to improve the computational efficiency of custom-made R functions. The tool was used exclusively for this purpose in relation to the creation of this dataset. All conceptual development, methodological design, processing, analysis, presentation, and interpretation are solely attributable to the author(s). Disclaimer. This dataset is composed of heavily processed data collected from various original sources, including the European Social Survey (ESS), World Values Survey (WVS), Multinational Time Use Study (MTUS), Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and the World Bank Group (WBG), but any processing, analysis, presentation, and interpretation of this data and any other views expressed in its related files are solely those of the author(s). This processing, analysis, presentation, and interpretation do not necessarily represent the views of any team or agency that have contributed to this data. The author(s) bear full responsibility for all errors and omissions in the processing, analysis, presentation, and interpretation of these data. References Anthropic (2026): 'Claude Opus', Anthropic. Retrieved 2026-09-15 Ballon, Paola, & Omar Alburqueque (2024): 'Social Sustainability Global Database 2.0: A leap forward in data disaggregation [Dataset]', World Bank Group. Retrieved 2026-02-23 Centre for Time Use Research (2026): 'Multinational Time Use Study (MTUS) [Dataset]', Centre for Time Use Research. Retrieved 2026-04-07 European Social Survey (2012): 'ESS2 - integrated file, edition 3.6 (Italy not included) [data set]', European Social Survey European Research Infrastructure (ESS ERIC). Sikt - Norwegian Agency for Shared Services in Education and Research. DOI: 10.21338/ess2e03_6 European Social Survey (2018): 'ESS3 - integrated file, edition 3.7 (Latvia and Romania not included) [data set]', European Social Survey European Research Infrastructure (ESS ERIC). Sikt - Norwegian Agency for Shared Services in Education and Research. DOI: 10.21338/ess3e03_7 European Social Survey (2023a): 'ESS10 - integrated file, edition 3.2 [data set]', European Social Survey European Research Infrastructure (ESS ERIC). Sikt - Norwegian Agency for Shared Services in Education and Research. DOI: 10.21338/ess10e03_2 European Social Survey (2023b): 'ESS1 - integrated file, edition 6.7 [data set]', European Social Survey European Research Infrastructure (ESS ERIC). Sikt - Norwegian Agency for Shared Services in Education and Research. DOI: 10.21338/ess1e06_7 European Social Survey (2023c): 'ESS4 - integrated file, edition 4.6 (Austria and Lithuania not included) [data set]', European Social Survey European Research Infrastructure (ESS ERIC). Sikt - Norwegian Agency for Shared Services in Education and Research. DOI: 10.21338/ess4e04_6 European Social Survey (2023d): 'ESS7 - integrated file, edition 2.3 [data set]', European Social Survey European Research Infrastructure (ESS ERIC). Sikt - Norwegian Agency for Shared Services in Education and Research. DOI: 10.21338/ess7e02_3 European Social Survey (2023e): 'ESS8 - integrated file, edition 2.3 [data set]', European Social Survey European Research Infrastructure (ESS ERIC). Sikt - Norwegian Agency for Shared Services in Education and Research. DOI: 10.21338/ess8e02_3 European Social Survey (2023f): 'ESS9 - integrated file, edition 3.2 [data set]', European Social Survey European Research Infrastructure (ESS ERIC). Sikt - Norwegian Agency for Shared Services in Education and Research. DOI: 10.21338/ess9e03_2 European Social Survey (2025a): 'ESS11 - integrated file, edition 4.0 [data set]', European Social Survey European Research Infrastructure (ESS ERIC). Sikt - Norwegian Agency for Shared Services in Education and Research. DOI: 10.21338/ess11e04_0 European Social Survey (2025b): 'ESS5 - integrated file, edition 3.6 (Austria not included) [data set]', European Social Survey European Research Infrastructure (ESS ERIC). Sikt - Norwegian Agency for Shared Services in Education and Research. DOI: 10.21338/ess5e03_6 European Social Survey (2025c): 'ESS6 - integrated file, edition 2.7 [data set]', European Social Survey European Research Infrastructure (ESS ERIC). Sikt - Norwegian Agency for Shared Services in Education and Research. DOI: 10.21338/ess6e02_7 Inglehart, Ronald, Christian Haerpfer, Alejandro Moreno, Christian Welzel, Kseniya Kizilova, Jaime Diez-Medrano, Marta Lagos, Pippa Norris, E. Ponarin, & Bi Puranen (2022): 'World Values Survey: All rounds - country-pooled datafile [dataset]', JD Systems Institute & WVSA Secretariat. Madrid, Spain & Vienna, Austria. (Dataset Version 3.0.0) DOI: 10.14281/18241.17 International Telecommunication Union (2026): 'Digital development: ICT indicators database [dataset]', World Bank Group. Retrieved 2026-02-23 Lamote de Grignon Pérez, Juana, Jonathan Gershuny, Margarita Vega-Rapun, & Oriel Sullivan (2025): 'Multinational time use study release version 11 [dataset]', University College London. DOI: 10.5522/04/28682660.v1 OECD (2026a): 'Productivity levels [Dataset]', Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Retrieved 2026-02-24 OECD (2026b): 'Annual transport trends [Dataset]', Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Retrieved 2026-02-24 OECD (2026c): 'Adults’ educational attainment distribution, by age group and gender [Dataset]', Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Retrieved 2026-02-24 OECD (2026d): 'Food supply and consumption [Dataset]', Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Retrieved 2026-02-24 OECD (2026e): 'Bibliometric indicators, by field [Dataset]', Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Retrieved 2026-02-24 OECD (2026f): 'Health status [Dataset]', Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Retrieved 2026-02-24 OECD (2026g): 'Historical population data [Dataset]', Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Retrieved 2026-02-24 OECD (2026h): 'Crude steelmaking capacity [Dataset]', Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Retrieved 2026-02-24 OECD (2026i): 'Gender wage gap [Dataset]', Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Retrieved 2026-02-24 OECD (2026j): 'Patents by technology [Dataset]', Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Retrieved 2026-02-24 R Core Team (2025): 'R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing [Computer software manual]', the R Project for Statistical Computing. Retrieved 2026-09-28 UNICEF (2026): 'UNICEF Data Warehouse [Data set]', World Bank Group. Retrieved 2026-02-23 World Bank Group (2026a): 'CO2 and Greenhouse Gas Emissions [Data set]', World Bank Group. Washington, DC. Retrieved 2026-02-23 World Bank Group (2026b): 'Gender Statistics [Data set]', World Bank Group. Washington, DC. Retrieved 2026-02-23 World Bank Group (2026c): 'Health Nutrition and Population Statistics [Dataset]', World Bank Group. Washington, DC. Retrieved 2026-02-23 World Bank Group (2026d): 'Sustainable Energy For All (SE4ALL) [Data set]', World Bank Group. Washington, DC. Retrieved 2026-02-23 World Bank Group (2026e): 'World Development Indicators [Data set]', World Bank Group. Washington, DC. Retrieved 2026-02-23 World Bank Group (2026f): 'World Bank Corporate Scorecard [Data set]', World Bank Group. Washington, DC. Retrieved 2026-02-23