st: Re: RE: RE: Continous to categorical variable

["Sergiy Radyakin" <Radyakin@aoek.uni-hannover.de>]

Why would you want to do that?

Would this be something you are looking for?


------------------------------------------
input educ
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
end
hist educ,d
recode educ (1=1) (2 3=2) (4 5 6=3) (7 8 9 10=4) (11 12 13 14=5) (15 16 
17=6) (18 19=7) (20=8),gen(educ2)
hist educ2,d
------------------------------------------

Now if you do:

scatter educ educ2

you will realize that you need to place the cut off points at the quantiles 
of the normal distribution (transformed properly for your data)



Sergiy








----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mentzakis, Emmanouil" <e.mentzakis@abdn.ac.uk>
To: <statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, February 21, 2007 6:03 PM
Subject: st: RE: RE: Continous to categorical variable



> Maybe I should describe a little bit better.
>
> I do not want the variable to "become more like a normal distribution".
> What I would like is the categories created to be such that the tails
> contain less individuals, with an increase in the numbers as we get
> closer to the middle category.
>
> Thanks
> Manos
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu
> [mailto:owner-statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu] On Behalf Of Maarten Buis
> Sent: 21 February 2007 16:48
> To: statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu
> Subject: st: RE: Continous to categorical variable
>
> --- Mentzakis, Emmanouil wrote:
> > I have a continous variable (i.e. income) and I would like to
> > transform it into a categorical one (e.g 5 categories/levels or more).
> >
> > I would like to ask if there is any way that I can ask stata to create
> > this variable deciding the appropriate cut-off points automatically so
> > that the categories follow aproximately a normal distrubution or they
> > are of equal size.
> For the latter have a look at -help egen- and look at the cut function.
> For the former: how would you expect a variable to become more like a
> normal distribution by making it coarser?
>
> 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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