Creating a dummy variable for groups of categorical values

[Rossella De Falco]

Dear all,

I have a dataset with the results of a survey where answers are labelled as "Very good", "good", "fair", "bad", "very bad". Then, I have % of responses for each answer. I would like to create a dummy variable named "Top" assuming value 0 when answers are very good, good and fair; value 1 when they are either bad or very bad.

Is there any STATA command to do so, or do I have to rename all the labels on a numerical basis (i.e. 1 for very bad, 2 for bad, etc.?)

Thank you in advance,
Best regards,
RD

[Carlo Lazzaro]

Rossella:
welcome to this forum.
I would take a look at -help recode-.

[Nick Cox]

Let's suppose that 4 and 5 label bad and very bad.


Then

gen top = whatever >= 4 if whatever < .

will map

values 3 or lower to 0

4 or higher to 1

except that any missings go to missing.

Please note for future questions:

https://www.statalist.org/forums/help#stata (how to give a data example: show, don't tell)

https://www.statalist.org/forums/help#spelling (Stata not STATA)

(If 1 and 2 are your existing values, then change the code accordingly. Not clear why you think you might need to change anything. In Stata rename means to change variable names, not to change value labels.)

[Rossella De Falco]

Rossella:
welcome to this forum.
I would take a look at -help recode-.

Thank you

[Rossella De Falco]

Let's suppose that 4 and 5 label bad and very bad.


Then

gen top = whatever >= 4 if whatever < .

will map

values 3 or lower to 0

4 or higher to 1

except that any missings go to missing.

Please note for future questions:

https://www.statalist.org/forums/help#stata (how to give a data example: show, don't tell)

https://www.statalist.org/forums/help#spelling (Stata not STATA)

(If 1 and 2 are your existing values, then change the code accordingly. Not clear why you think you might need to change anything. In Stata rename means to change variable names, not to change value labels.)

Thank you, and I will look at how to give data example and spelling,

Best regards
R.