Re: st: Graphing change over time of a categorical variable

[David Bell <dcbell@iupui.edu>]

Brendan,

Look at Stata Journal 6-4.  There is an article on sequence analysis  
by Brzinsky-Fay, Kohler and Luniak.  They provide some very useful  
programs.  Try -search sequence analysis-.
====================================
David C. Bell
Professor of Sociology
Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)
(317) 278-1336
====================================




On Mar 19, 2007, at 10:47 PM, Stevenson, Brendan wrote:


> Hi all,
> I was hoping that somebody out there could help me:
> I began doing this in Visual Basic (after summarising the data in  
> STATA and copying the table to EXCEL), but thought perhaps it would  
> be possible to do this in STATA. I will describe the problem using  
> one of the variables in our longitudinal study...
> Household Type:
> Sole person
> Sole parent
> Couple no children
> Couple with children
> Shared House/Flat
> Other
>
> Over time individuals will move between these different household  
> types (usually in fairly predictable ways), unfortunately by the  
> fifth sampling wave the possible combinations (i.e. the number of  
> different possible household types and individual has been part of  
> over time) becomes unwieldy and difficult to summarise.
> Given that the groups we often disseminate results tend to be  
> statistically na�ve (government and community agencies/groups),  
> presenting complex information graphically becomes essential.
>
> A simple 2 wave example would be
> Wave 1			Wave 2
> Sole Person			Sole Person
> Sole Person			Sole Parent
> Sole Person			Couple no children
> Sole Person			Couple with children
> Sole Person			Shared House/Flat
> Sole Person			Other
> Sole Parent			Sole Person
> Sole Parent			Sole Parent
> Sole Parent			Couple no children
> Sole Parent			Couple with children
> Sole Parent			Shared House/Flat
> Sole Parent			Other
> Couple no children	Sole Person
> Couple no children	Sole Parent
> Couple no children	Couple no children
> Couple no children	Couple with children
> Couple no children	Shared House/Flat
> Couple no children	Other
> ...
>
> My idea was to have arrows between the categories (like a path  
> diagram), where the arrow will represent a summary variable (e.g.  
> %, mean, or mean of a second variable) in its thickness. Over  
> successive sampling waves, by filtering out all but those who began  
> in say a couple with children household, you could map which  
> households individual were more likely to have moved to over time  
> (and conversely least likely).
>
> Any ideas?
> Have I described the problem adequately?
>
> Cheers,
> Brendan Stevenson
> Massey University
> New Zealand
>
> *
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