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Re: st: calculating means by group, with weights
--- Gisella Young <[email protected]> wrote:
> I am trying to calculate the mean of a variable ("income") across
> groups ("bracket"), but using the relevant survey weights (variable
> "weight"). I tried saying:
>
> bys bracket: egen float meanincome = mean(income) [fweight=weight]
>
> but this is not possible since the egen command does not allow for
> weighting. This is a problem for me as if I do not use the weights
> the means will be wrong.
Since you are using fweiths there are at least 2 strategies you could
follow. The first is that fweights tell you how many observations a
record represents. You can turn your data into unweighted data by
-expand-ing it, this way each record stands for 1 observation, and
there is no need to weight. See -help expand- and the example below.
The other option is to use -collapse- to make a new dataset with
weighted means, and -merge- that back into your original data. See
-help collapse- and -help merge-. As can be seen in the example below,
the two methods yield exactly the same result (as it should).
*------------- begin example -----------------
sysuse auto, clear
tempfile a b
sort rep78
save `a'
collapse (mean) meanmpg=mpg [fw=tru], by(rep78)
sort rep78
save `b'
use `a', clear
merge rep78 using `b'
expand tru
bys rep78 : egen meanmpg2 = mean(mpg)
tab meanmpg meanmpg2
*-------------- end example -------------------
(For more on how to use examples I sent to the Statalist, see
http://home.fsw.vu.nl/m.buis/stata/exampleFAQ.html )
Hope this helps,
Maarten
-----------------------------------------
Maarten L. Buis
Department of Social Research Methodology
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Boelelaan 1081
1081 HV Amsterdam
The Netherlands
visiting address:
Buitenveldertselaan 3 (Metropolitan), room Z434
+31 20 5986715
http://home.fsw.vu.nl/m.buis/
-----------------------------------------
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