Support #2057
What is ficode measuring?
80%
Description
Hello
My understanding is that the variable ficode https://www.understandingsociety.ac.uk/documentation/mainstage/variables/ficode/ is measuring the specific benefits received by individuals.
Please can I just confirm that my understanding is correct? I was wanted to check because I wasn't sure why this is recorded as a separate variable when questions asking people what benefits do they receive are already asked.
Is it the case that if an individual is receiving a combination of benefits they were will be recorded as having the relevant different benefit income codes? I saw that the website totals up the percentage of people to 100%, but I would have thought that this would add up to more than 100% if some people had a combination of different benefit income codes so just wanted to check?
Thanks in advance
Updated by Understanding Society User Support Team 2 months ago
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Hello,
Ficode is an indicator of the benefit a given respondent receives. The variable is included in the w_income file but in this file, differently than in other individual level files like indresp or indall, each row does NOT correspond to a single respondent. Each respondent can report up to three receipts (fiseq) of a particular benefit (ficode). In other words, for some respondents there are multiple rows and pidp does not uniquely identify rows, and a unique identifier is given by a combination of pidp, ficode, and fiseq. When you look at the file you will see that it is structured in this way, pidp, fiseq, and ficode, tells you to whom, to which receipt, and of which benefit the row corresponds and the variables that follow like "Last amount received" and "Period covered by last amount received" will you give you further details. So, on the website it indeed sums up to 100% but the total here is not the number of individual respondents but the number of unique pidp x ficode x fiseq combinations.
Best wishes,
Piotr Marzec,
UKHLS User Support