how to show mean in each year for categorical data

[Omar Shaher]

Dear researchers,

I have a panel dataset for the period from 2012-2020. The dependent variable is categorical variable ranked from 1 to 5. I want to show the mean value for each category in each year. I have used the below code but it shows me the percentage, I need to show the mean:

by  year , sort: fre IR_w

Can you please advise?

Many thanks in advance.

[Alan Neustadtl]

How about something like this:

sysuse uslifeexp2.dta
tabstat le, by(year)
tab year, summarize(le) nostandard nofreq

[Omar Shaher]

Thanks a lot Alan Neustadtl , but that doesn't show what I need, it's actually showed me the mean for each year, but what I need is the mean for each category in each year??

[Rich Goldstein]

why not just take the code in #2 and, using the last line there, change to a cross-tab by adding the name of your categorical variable after the word "year"? this could also be done for the -tabstat- line by adding the name of your categorical variable after year in the "by()" option

[Omar Shaher]

Thanks Rich Goldstein , I tried the below code as you mentioned:

tab year (IR_w), summarize ( IR_w)

But this showed me the overall mean for all categories for each year and the frequency for each category, but this is not what I want, what I want is to show the MEAN for each category for each year???

[Nick Cox]

I note that although you keep asking for it the mean "for each category for each year" is unlikely to be what you want really. The mean for category 1 in 2020 is always 1, for category 2 in 2019 is always 2, and so forth.

I am at a loss to understand what you do want. Please do what we ask (FAQ Advice #12) and give a simple data example and a concrete example of what you want to calculate. Then precise code is likely to be immediate and people won't have to treat this as a guessing game.

[Rich Goldstein]

first, that is not what I suggested; see

help tab2

second, Nick Cox and I clearly are interpreting your question differently - the answer is, as Nick says, to provide a data example using -dataex- (see the FAQ)

[Omar Shaher]

Thanks Nick Cox and Rich Goldstein for the clarification. Greatly appreciated.

Thanks a lot and I very much apologize for any inconvenience caused.