Support #1977
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Birth and non-birth parents
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Description
Dear Understanding Society team,
We're currently using wave 11 data and want to distinguish birth and non-birth parents. My current code is based on variables 'mnspid' (Nat/step/adopt mother: PIDP) and 'mnpid' (Natural mother: PIDP). Based on the variable description, I thought 'mnspid' indicates all mothers' IDs, no matter whether they're birth mothers or not, and 'mnpid' indicates only birth mothers' IDs. So I compared 'mnpid' to 'mnspid' and labeled those who have overlapped IDs as birth mothers, and those non-overlapped as non-birth mothers. However, the results show there are only 4 non-birth mothers in my dataset, which involves around 5,000 households. I don't think this result is reasonable. Therefore I'm wondering if you can kindly help me to clarify my questions regarding the variables?
(1) I noticed in the description 'mnpid' indicates it refers to pidp of 'natural mother.' Does that refer to 'birth mother'?
(2) If my approach is problematic, is there a better way to distinguish birth and non-birth mothers in Understanding Society?
Thanks in advance for your time, and I look forward to your reply.
Best,
Yushi
Updated by Understanding Society User Support Team about 1 year ago
- Category set to Data management
- Status changed from New to Feedback
- % Done changed from 0 to 50
- Private changed from Yes to No
Hello Yushi,
Your approach is correct. The variable "natural mother" indeed refers to the birth mother, as you correctly mentioned.
You can use file k_egoalt and tabulate variable k_relationship_dv, which contains information about the relationships of household members to confirm the accuracy of your findings.
I hope this information is helpful.
Best wishes,
Roberto Cavazos
Understanding Society User Support Team
Updated by Understanding Society User Support Team about 1 year ago
- Status changed from Feedback to Resolved
- % Done changed from 50 to 100