Support #854
Ethnicity and Socio-economic group - inapplicable data
Added by Helena Dare-Edwards over 6 years ago.
Updated over 6 years ago.
Description
Hi,
I am trying to put together profile data for respondents with dependent children involved in wave 6 (using the variable f_ndepchl_dv - Number of own dependent children in household in datafile:f_indresp) and have managed to tabulate data for region, gender, and age, but am having problems with ethnic group (f_racel) and socio-economic group (f_jbseg_dv). Both of these variables have very high proportions of respondents (of the whole sample) for whom the question appears to be inapplicable (79% and 42% respectively), and it isn't clear to me why? Are these missing data represented elsewhere? These don't appear to be errors in our datafile once imported as the same proportions are reported in tables on the website under the respective variables (e.g. https://www.understandingsociety.ac.uk/documentation/mainstage/dataset-documentation/wave/6/datafile/f_indresp/variable/f_racel).
I have looked at the other variables that cover the same themes, but the result, in terms of applicability, is the same - could you advise please? Are there other variables I am missing that you could point me in the direction of, or is there another way of analysing the ethnicity and social group of respondents who have dependent children in household? Alternatively, are we able to request such data from Understanding Society directly?
Many thanks,
Helena
- Category changed from Data analysis to Survey design
- Status changed from New to In Progress
- Target version set to M6
- % Done changed from 0 to 10
- Private changed from Yes to No
Many thanks for your enquiry. The Understanding Society team is looking into it and we will get back to you as soon as we can.
Best wishes,
Stephanie Auty - Understanding Society User Support Officer
UPDATE- I have just read through the Ethnicity Research User Guide and found that the ethnic group question is asked of the whole sample at Wave 1 and thereafter is only asked of respondents when they are interviewed for the first time. I am now wondering if this is also the case for Socio-economic Group (e.g. if respondents have not changed jobs since last interviewed) and therefore would explain the high proportions of inapplicables in both these variables.
Unfortunately, in my office I am unable to pool data from Waves 1-6 in order to access these profile data for respondents involved in multiple waves of research - the system is just not powerful nor large enough to do it. Is there any way that UKHLS could pull this data together for us - specifically the socio-economic group and ethnicity of all respondents in Wave 6 with dependent children - Is it possible to request such a thing?
Many thanks again
Dear Helena,
You will not need to pool the race data yourself, as the information is already collated in f_racel_dv, so please use this variable instead.
As for socio-economic group, respondents are only categorised in f_jbseg_dv if they are working, so the missing values apply to people who are unemployed, students, home makers etc. You can check this using the variables f_jbhas (respondent did paid work in the last week) and f_jboff (did no work last week but has a paid job). If either of these are equivalent to 1 then the respondent should have an applicable value for f_jbseg_dv, and if both are not equal to 1 then f_jbseg_dv will be -8 (inapplicable).
Best wishes,
Stephanie Auty - Understanding Society User Support Officer
- Status changed from In Progress to Feedback
- Assignee changed from Alita Nandi to Helena Dare-Edwards
- % Done changed from 10 to 80
- Status changed from Feedback to Resolved
- % Done changed from 80 to 100
- Status changed from Resolved to Closed
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Updated by Stephanie Auty 
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