st: Workflow to combine dummy variables?

[John A Stefanic <stefanic@Colorado.EDU>]

Hello all!  First time caller.  I'm having a lot of trouble combining  
dummy variables and creating a new variable where I count dummy  
variables.

So, I have a dataset (GSS) with variables SPOUSE1, CHILD1, SPOUSE2,  
CHILD2, SPOUSE3, CHILD3, indicating if person 1, 2, and 3 are a spouse  
or child.  In each variable, 1 == Mentioned, 2 == Not Mentioned.

Since both SPOUSE1 and CHILD1 are kin, I want to recode them into a  
new variable, KIN1, if either SPOUSE1 or CHILD1 == 1.  So I tried:

recode SPOUSE1 SPOUSE2 CHILD1 CHILD2 (2 = 0) (1 = 1) (.a = .a) (.c  
= .c), pre(RE)

Then, I did this:

generate int KIN1 = RESPOUSE1 + RECHILD1

This works fine, I get a new variable KIN1, with values 1 (person is  
kin) or 0 (person not kin).  But, now I want to make another new  
variable, NUMKIN, indicating the sum of variables KIN1, KIN2, and KIN3.

So, I did this:

generate int NUMKIN == KIN1 + KIN2 + KIN3

But, my results exclude a number of cases as missing data.  If the  
case is not a "1" for KIN3, it is excluded!  Is there something I can  
do to change my workflow to make this process easier?  How does one  
combine dummy variables in STATA?

Thanks!
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