Understanding Society User Support

Dear Alita,

I am looking at the number of children a women had. For that purpose, I am very interested in the code you provided. With regard to the code above, I do have comments/questions.
First, I would include caesarean births (pregout`i'==2).
Second, pregout1, pregout2 and pregout3 is available for waves 2 through 7. Why not use them instead of pregout1-pregout5?
Third, when you define/code ttlkids, I am not quite sure why you do it for wave 1 only and do not use nnatch, lnprnt, lprnt for all waves 1-7 (see my suggested code below).
Once again, I would appreciate your insights for my three points raised.

Thank you very much.

Nico

generate ttlkids=0 if nnatch==0
replace ttlkids=0 if nnatch==. & lprnt==2
replace ttlkids= lnprnt if lnprnt<. & lnprnt>0
// To account for 32 cases where a_nnatch>a_lnrpnt
replace ttlkids=nnatch if nnatch>lnprnt & nnatch>0 & nnatch<. & lnprnt>0 & lnprnt<.
generat ttlkids_sdli=0
forvalues i=1/3 {
replace ttlkids_sdli=ttlkids_sdli+1 if pregout`i'==1 | pregout`i'==2
}

gen kids = ttlkids + ttlkids_sdli

Hi Alita,

Thank you so much for the information and code.

I am utilising the original BHPS sample (hhorig==3) and need a cumulative variable for BHPS waves B1-B18 as well as USoc waves 2-7. Unfortunately, I can't find variables for number of children fathered/born since the last interview - i.e. variables equivalent to NCHILD and PREGOUT* - for BHPS waves. I can tell how many children a person has had in wave B2 (when everyone was asked), but I have no way of knowing if additional children are fathered/born after this. Therefore, I cannot create a cumulative variable that covers BHPS waves. Is my understanding of the situation correct?

Thanks again for all of your help.

Best wishes,
Alice

Hi Nico,

1. Good idea to include ceasarian birth - thanks for spotting that.
2. The number of pregout variables depends on the maximum number of pregnancies reported in that wave. So, you have to include all the variables that are available in that wave. In terms of coding this will mean you change the forvalues statement for each wave depending on the number of pregout variables available in that wave. For Wave 2 it will go from 1/5 for Wave 3 from 1/3 and so on. (There are other ways of writing the syntax so that you don't have to write the syntax for each wave separately and use the same forvalues statement for all waves).

Best wishes,
Alita

Hi Alice,

I have asked our BHPS experts to answer your question.

In the meantime you could take a look at the partnership and fertility history file that Chiara Pronzato produced for the BHPS. You can find it in the UKDS website.
https://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/catalogue/?sn=5629&type=Data%20catalogue
For each person, the date of birth of every child is given in this file. Using that and the interview date you should be able to compute the number of children ever born by that wave.

Best wishes,
Alita

Dear Alita,

I believe I spotted yet another issue here in the context of generating the number of children ever born to a given women in USoc. Your code below fails to consider the IEMB in wave 6 when you just look at LNPRNT at the initial wave 1. Cheers. Nico
In W1
generat ttlkids=0 if a_nnatch==0
replace ttlkids=0 if a_nnatch==. & a_lprnt==2
replace ttlkids=a_lnprnt if a_lnprnt<. & a_lnprnt>0
// To account for 32 cases where a_nnatch>a_lnrpnt
replace ttlkids=a_nnatch if a_nnatch>a_lnprnt & a_nnatch>0 & a_nnatch<. & a_lnprnt>0 & a_lnprnt<.
*from onwards W2
generat ttlkids_sdli=0
replace ttlkids_sdli=nchild if nchild<. & nchild>0 // for men 16-64 year olds
// for women
forvalues i=1/5 {
replace ttlkids_sdli=ttlkids_sdli+1 if pregout`i'==1
}