System and method embodiments are provided for creating data structure for parallel programming. A method for creating data structures for parallel programming includes forming, by one or more processors, one or more data structures, each data structure comprising one or more global containers and a plurality of local containers. Each of the global containers is accessible by all of a plurality of threads in a multi-thread parallel processing environment. Each of the plurality of local containers is accessible only by a corresponding one of the plurality of threads. A global container is split into a second plurality of local containers when items are going to be processed in parallel and two or more local containers are merged into a single global container when a parallel process reaches a synchronization point.