Support #2317
open
Variable for childless
80%
Description
Hiya,
I'd like to generate a variable that is whether or not an individual is childless (or has had a child) ideally inside or outside the household. I'd really like the variable to be for both USoc/ BHPS. I know that there is a variable in the xwavedat: anychild_dv Ever had a (biological) child - that uses first child's DOB: ch1by_dv First (biological) child birth year
. However given this is part of the xwavedat dataset I wouldn't, for example, be able to use it plot the % of women who are childless as a time series across BHPS and USoc. Would be very grateful for some advice or code that would enable me to construct such a variable that can be used across the two surveys.
Thanks v much in advance,
Charlie
Files
Updated by Understanding Society User Support Team 21 days ago
- Category set to Data documentation
- Status changed from New to Feedback
- % Done changed from 0 to 50
- Private changed from Yes to No
Hello Charlie,
You might want to check variable ch1by_dv, which measures the birth year of the first (biological) child. This variable, together with the interview date variables (intdaty_dv and intdatm_dv), can provide a good approximation for deriving the variable by wave because “ch1by_dv” is also found in xwavedat.
You would just need to define the wave-specific universe for which you want to identify whether respondents had children or not, as the -9 missing values in ch1by_dv also include respondents who were children at the time of the interview.
I hope this information is helpful
Best wishes,
Roberto Cavazos
Understanding Society User Support Team
Updated by Charlie McCurdy 9 days ago
Hiya Roberto,
This is very helpful. Are you also able to provide a suggestion on how to derive a variable that is number of own children by wave? One possibility would be to use nnatch (number of natural children in household) and roll this forward from the start of e.g. BHPS. Although this is just those that live in the h/hold and presumably wouldn't capture the number of own children for those where children had moved out.
Thanks v much in advance,
Charlie
Updated by Understanding Society User Support Team 7 days ago
- File nchild_dv_pub.do.txt nchild_dv_pub.do.txt added
- % Done changed from 50 to 80
Hi Charlie,
You can modify the code creating nchild_dv to include only relationship_dv==9 (see https://www.understandingsociety.ac.uk/documentation/mainstage/variables/relationship_dv/). I'm attaching the syntax file.
Hope this helps.
Best wishes,
Piotr Marzec
UKHLS User Support