Correlations with variables with different years

[Miguel Fuentes]

Hi everyone!
I'm working with a 2020 social mobility index and the 2022 barometer on LGBT rights. I don't have data for 2020 on the second variable, so I was wondering if I can run a correlation with the 2020 vs 2022 data? Are there any specifications I should put in my code?
Thanks in advance!

[Hemanshu Kumar]

You provide no context on what sort of data you have -- is this cross-country, or across counties or provinces within a country (and if so, which country), and I don't work on these questions, so this may or may not be correct -- but my instinct with most social indicators is that they evolve slowly over time, and so I would hazard that the results from correlations of 2022 data on social mobility vs LGBT rights would be very similar to those between 2022 vs 2020 data. If you have information that things changed dramatically (and unevenly) for LGBT rights between 2020 and 2022, then this would of course be false.

Are there any specifications I should put in my code?

I'm not sure how we're expected to answer that without any data extract, any explanation or extract of your code, etc.