Storing mean/scalar in a loop

[Mark Xu]

Hi. I am analyzing a set of data and would like to know the weighted average age of observations in each state. I am having trouble writing a loop that correctly and effectively incorporates the idiosyncratic weights. For instance, I want to do the following:
mean weight if state==1
*store this weight somehow as weight_state1
gen weighted_age=weight*age/weight_state1 if state==1
mean weighted_age
*I want to do this for all states

I have been doing this for binary variables such as sex. I used:
mean weight if sex==1
*output is, for example, 5000
gen weighted_age_male=weight*age/5000 if sex==1
mean weighted_age_male

But to do this for all states is a monumental task (because there are variables other than age I want to analyze) and I'm sure there is an easier way to do it in a loop. So far, I know that I can do summ and svret to store the scalars (including the mean) into a table, but I don't know how to extract that one number to use in the next line of code...

Any help is appreciated!

[Clyde Schechter]

Read -help egen- and -help by- to learn about these very useful parts of Stata. Specificaly:

by state, sort: egen mean_state_weight = mean(weight)

foreach v of varlist age { // AND LIST THE OTHER VARIABLES AFTER age
    by state: egen mean_weighted_`v' = mean(weight*`v'/mean_state_weight)
}

[Mark Xu]

Read -help egen- and -help by- to learn about these very useful parts of Stata. Specificaly:

by state, sort: egen mean_state_weight = mean(weight)

foreach v of varlist age { // AND LIST THE OTHER VARIABLES AFTER age
by state: egen mean_weighted_`v' = mean(weight*`v'/mean_state_weight)
}

Thank you for directing me to these very helpful commands that solved my problem!