Scaling Data

[Janet Lewis]

Hi all,
I am working on some survey data, one question is based on proportions. I therefore have 5 variables which should add up to 100%. Some responses have a sum of just over 100 or just under 100. I would like to scale the 5 variables such that the totals always add up to 100. Is there a streamline way I can do this?
Thanks!

[Ken Chui]

clear
input v1 v2 v3 v4 v5
1 2 3 4 5
end

egen total = rowtotal(v1 v2 v3 v4 v5)

foreach x in v1 v2 v3 v4 v5{
    gen res_`x' = `x'/total*100
    format res_`x' %4.2f
}

list

[Janet Lewis]

Thank you, this was very helpful.

[Nick Cox]

Why scale here? If the variables are all integers you should expect that they add to 100. Otherwise failure to add exactly to 100 is a common side-effect of reporting resolution. More at https://statweb.stanford.edu/~cgates...freedman79.pdf