Creating a Family Size Variable

This example creates a JavaScript family size variable using a household structure and number of children question as inputs. It assumes the following questions:

Q4.	Are you …
Living with your parents/guardian		1	SCREENOUT
Living alone					2	GO TO Q6
Living with partner only			3	GO TO Q6
Living with children only			4
Living with partner and children		5
Sharing accommodation				6	GO TO Q6
Other (Please type into the box.)		7 	GO TO Q6

Q5.	How many children live with you in the following age groups?  Please make sure you type a number into every box
a)	__ Under 5
b)	__ 5-7
c)	__ 8-11
d)	__ 12-14
e)	__ 15-17
f)	__ 18 to 24
g)	__ 25 or over

The Expression is then:

if (Q4 == 2) 1;
else if (Q4 == 3) 2;
else if (Q4 == 4) 1 + Q5_A + Q5_B + Q5_C + Q5_D + Q5_E + Q5_F + Q5_G;
else if (Q4 == 5) 2 + Q5_A + Q5_B + Q5_C + Q5_D + Q5_E + Q5_F + Q5_G;
else if (Q4 >= 6) 3;

Note that in the case of the last category, sharing accommodation and other, a guess of family size being 3 has been made.

See also

Banners describes a more straight-forward approach for creating a table with categories like these (but which does not create a new variable, as is shown above).