A Survey on Deep Learning Approaches for Tabular Data Generation: Utility, Alignment, Fidelity, Privacy, Diversity, and Beyond

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Main Authors: Stoian, Mihaela Cătălina, Giunchiglia, Eleonora, Lukasiewicz, Thomas
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Stoian, Mihaela Cătălina
Giunchiglia, Eleonora
Lukasiewicz, Thomas
author_facet Stoian, Mihaela Cătălina
Giunchiglia, Eleonora
Lukasiewicz, Thomas
contents Generative modelling has become the standard approach for synthesising tabular data. However, different use cases demand synthetic data to comply with different requirements to be useful in practice. In this survey, we review deep generative modelling approaches for tabular data from the perspective of five types of requirements: utility of the synthetic data, alignment of the synthetic data with domain-specific knowledge, statistical fidelity of the synthetic data distribution compared to the real data distribution, privacy-preserving capabilities, and sampling diversity. We group the approaches along two levels of granularity: (i) based on the requirements they address and (ii) according to the underlying model they utilise. Additionally, we summarise the appropriate evaluation methods for each requirement, the relationships among the requirements, and the specific characteristics of each model type. Finally, we discuss future directions for the field, along with opportunities to improve the current evaluation methods. Overall, this survey can be seen as a user guide to tabular data generation: helping readers navigate available models and evaluation methods to find those best suited to their needs.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2503_05954
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A Survey on Deep Learning Approaches for Tabular Data Generation: Utility, Alignment, Fidelity, Privacy, Diversity, and Beyond
Stoian, Mihaela Cătălina
Giunchiglia, Eleonora
Lukasiewicz, Thomas
Machine Learning
Generative modelling has become the standard approach for synthesising tabular data. However, different use cases demand synthetic data to comply with different requirements to be useful in practice. In this survey, we review deep generative modelling approaches for tabular data from the perspective of five types of requirements: utility of the synthetic data, alignment of the synthetic data with domain-specific knowledge, statistical fidelity of the synthetic data distribution compared to the real data distribution, privacy-preserving capabilities, and sampling diversity. We group the approaches along two levels of granularity: (i) based on the requirements they address and (ii) according to the underlying model they utilise. Additionally, we summarise the appropriate evaluation methods for each requirement, the relationships among the requirements, and the specific characteristics of each model type. Finally, we discuss future directions for the field, along with opportunities to improve the current evaluation methods. Overall, this survey can be seen as a user guide to tabular data generation: helping readers navigate available models and evaluation methods to find those best suited to their needs.
title A Survey on Deep Learning Approaches for Tabular Data Generation: Utility, Alignment, Fidelity, Privacy, Diversity, and Beyond
topic Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.05954