Re: st: RE: SIPP survey in stata - calculations

[Austin Nichols <austinnichols@gmail.com>]

Jimmy Jin <Jimmy.Jin@cbo.gov>
The proper weight variable to use depends on the use to which you are
putting the data, but you cannot properly "apply the weight as a
probability weight using summarize or tabulate" since those commands
do not accept pweights; you must use -svy- commands, e.g.
svyset ssuid [pw=wpfinwgt]
svy: tab epensnyn

Much of the detail on the survey is on its website
(http://www.census.gov/sipp/) including a Users' Guide. If you do
ssc inst ddf2dct
help ddf2dct
you will see links to the NBER site you refer to; however the most
recent versions of the files and the fastest download times are always
from BLS (http://www.bls.census.gov/sipp_ftp.html).

However, it's not clear that the original poster who wants to
"calculate the nr of people and the percentage of working age who are
employed and are included in a retirement plan offered on their job
and not through the social security" can do so using the SIPP.  Is the
idea to find the number of uncovered workers (mostly state gov't
employees) who have other pensions?  This kind of question is probably
outside the scope of Statalist, though I am guessing there is
something apropos on the CBO website...

On Tue, Feb 15, 2011 at 11:02 AM, Jimmy Jin <Jimmy.Jin@cbo.gov> wrote:
> Tharshini,
>
> First of all, I recommend getting SIPP data from the NBER SIPP repository, which has Stata do/dct files ready-made so you don't accidentally mess up the first step of importing the data:
>
> http://www.nber.org/data/sipp.html
>
> Second of all, you do need to use weights. The weight variable at the person level is WPFINWGT. You can apply the weight as a probability weight using summarize or tabulate, or you can sum the weight variable itself over the group you're interested in to obtain a rough estimate.
>
> Best,
> Jimmy
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu [mailto:owner-statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu] On Behalf Of Tharshini Thangavelu
> Sent: Sunday, February 13, 2011 2:30 PM
> To: statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu
> Subject: st: SIPP survey in stata - calculations
>
> Hi statalist,
>
> Have someone worked with the SIPP = U.S Survey of Income and Program Participation, Topical Module wave 3 year 2008
>
> I have few questions concerning the data. When you work with the SIPP, do I have to take into account the weighting procedure when I want to calculate indicators.
>
> Ex: I want to calculate the nr of people and the percentage of working age who are employed and are included in a retirement plan offered on their job and not through the social security.
>
> If anyone who can provide me with their knowledge to understand the SIPP data set, I would be more than happy.
>
> Thanks in advance !

*
*   For searches and help try:
*   http://www.stata.com/help.cgi?search
*   http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
*   http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/