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Data

Military personnel as a share of total population

See all data and research on:
Military Personnel & Spending

About this data

Military personnel as a share of total population
The ratio of military personnel to total population, expressed as a percentage.
Source
Correlates of War - National Material Capabilities Version 6.0 (2021) – with major processing by Our World in Data
Last updated
July 26, 2024
Next expected update
July 2025
Date range
1816–2016
Unit
%

Related research and writing

Long-run trends in military spending and personnel: four key facts from new data

Esteban Ortiz-Ospina

Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

The National Material Capabilities data set contains annual values for total population, urban population, iron and steel production, energy consumption, military personnel, and military expenditure of all state members, currently from 1816-2016. The widely-used Composite Index of National Capability (CINC) index is based on these six variables and included in the data set.

Retrieved on
July 26, 2024
Retrieved from
https://correlatesofwar.org/data-sets/national-material-capabilities/
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
    

  • Singer, J. David, Stuart Bremer, and John Stuckey. (1972). “Capability Distribution, Uncertainty, and Major Power War, 1820-1965.” in Bruce Russett (ed) Peace, War, and Numbers, Beverly Hills: Sage, 19-48.
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  • Singer, J. David. 1987. “Reconstructing the Correlates of War Dataset on Material Capabilities of States, 1816-1985” International Interactions, 14: 115-32.
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All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.

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Notes on our processing step for this indicator

We have divided the number of military personnel by the total population and multiplied by 100 to express the result as a percentage. Both indicators are provided by the source.

Reuse this work

  • All data produced by third-party providers and made available by Our World in Data are subject to the license terms from the original providers. Our work would not be possible without the data providers we rely on, so we ask you to always cite them appropriately (see below). This is crucial to allow data providers to continue doing their work, enhancing, maintaining and updating valuable data.
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Citations

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Military personnel as a share of total population”, part of the following publication: Bastian Herre and Pablo Arriagada (2013) - “Military Personnel and Spending”. Data adapted from Correlates of War. Retrieved from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/military-personnel-as-a-share-of-total-population [online resource]
How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

Correlates of War - National Material Capabilities Version 6.0 (2021) – with major processing by Our World in Data

Full citation

Correlates of War - National Material Capabilities Version 6.0 (2021) – with major processing by Our World in Data. “Military personnel as a share of total population” [dataset]. Correlates of War, “National Material Capabilities Version 6.0” [original data]. Retrieved December 15, 2024 from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/military-personnel-as-a-share-of-total-population