help soepuse, help soepadd

Title

Makes retrievals from GSOEP real easy

Syntax

soepuse
varnames
using dirname
,
mandatory_options
[
soepuse_options joint_options
]

soepadd
varnames
,
mandatory_options
[
joint_options
]

dirname refer to the name of the directory in which the GSOEP
files are stored. The term varnames refer to variable names of
the GSOEP. Note: You cannot specify varnames in terms of a varlist.

Mandatory options
ftyp(fileype) type of SOEP file (h, p, pgen, etc.)

waves(numlist) waves to be used

Soepuse_options
design(designtype) Design; default: design(balanced)

keep(varlist) Keep variables from ppfad

clear Replace data in memory

Joint Options (seldom used)
ost(g|h) Request special files for east

onlyost Use only special files

oldnetto Use old design of netto variables

uc Variable list is upper case

fast Speed up (not much)

Description

soepuse and soepadd are two little tools for
performing retrievals from the German Socio Economic Panel. The
programs are revisions of two older programs, mkdat and
holrein for the same purpose. Both programs provide the same
function than there predecessors but with a simplified syntax.

The programs create SOEP datasets with the variables of the
varlist. soepuse generates a new file and soepadd merges
further variables to a file generated with soepuse. By default,
the created files will have a balanced panel design, but various
other designs could be specified.

soepuse and soepadd both require that the variables
to be loaded are specified in the order of the item correspondence
list and that variables all belong to the same file-type. Here is an
example: To combine individual gross and net income variables with
household income using the waves of 1991 and 1992 you would specify

. soepuse hp5401 ip5401 hp5402 ip5402 using ~/data/gsoep37, f(p) w(1991 1992)

. soepadd hh49 ih49, f(h) w(1991 1992)

or in a format that highlights better the requested format of
the variable list:

. soepuse

hp5401 ip5401

hp5402 ip5402

using ~/data/gsoep37, f(p) w(1991 1992)

soepuse and soepadd are constructed for using them
in connection with
SOEPinfo. Consider you have
been searching the GSOEP database with SOEPinfo for information on
political interest and party identification from 1984 to 1998. After
founding that information you have stored SOEPinfo's item correspondence
list to a file, which looks like this:

-----------------------------------------------------------
1984 |1985 |1986 |1987 |1988 |1989
-----------------------------------------------------------
Politik
Politisches Interesse
- |BP75 |CP75 |DP84 |EP73 |FP89
Politik
Allgemeine Parteienpraeferenz
AP5601 |BP7901 |CP7901 |DP8801 |EP7701 |FP9301
Politik
Parteienidentifikation
AP5602 |BP7902 |CP7902 |DP8802 |EP7702 |FP9302

After cutting pipes and headings, and changing uppercase to
lowercase you end up with

- bp75 cp75 dp84 ep73 fp89
ap5601 bp7901 cp7901 dp8801 ep7701 fp9301
ap5602 bp7902 cp7902 dp8802 ep7702 fp9302

which is the structure requested by soepuse and
soepadd. Take care not to erase the - sign for the
missing variable name in the first row. soepuse and
soepadd needs this as a placeholder whenever a variable is
missing in the item correspondence.

The entire soepuse command to load all variables of
the example will become

. soepuse

- bp75 cp75 dp84 ep73 fp89

ap5601 bp7901 cp7901 dp8801 ep7701 fp9301

ap5602 bp7902 cp7902 dp8802 ep7702 fp9302

using ~/data/gsoep37, f(p) w(1984/1989)

Options

ftyp(string) is used to specify the type of
the GSOEP data sets in which the variables to be loaded are stored. As
it stands this can be any of the following types. Note that you can
only specify one filetype add a time. Use soepadd to add
variables of further filetypes.

h Household data

hbrutto Gross information on household

hgen Household data, generated variables

kind child information

p Person data

pausl Person files for foreigners

pbrutto Gross information on persons

pequiv PSID equivalence files

pgen Person data, generated variables

pkal Person calendar files

pluecke Retrospective question to fill gaps

waves(numlist) is used to specify the
waves from which the variables out to be taken. waves(1984/2002)
is used if the variable names correspond to files for all waves from
1984 to 2002. Likewise waves(1985(5)2005) is used if variable
names correspond to waves of 1985, 1990, ... 2005. See
help numlist for various ways to specify the list of waves.

design(designtype) specifies the design of the dataset to
be created. design(balanced) is used to create a balanced panel
design, i.e. the data will contain only observations interviewed in
all requested waves. design(any) will keep all available
observations in the dataset. design(#) with # being an integer
positive number creates datasets with respondents interviewed at least
# times. With design(any) and design(#) the netto
variables from ppfad will be retained in the data set for further fine
tuning of the design.

clear specifies that it is okay to replace the data in
memory, even though the current data have not been saved to disk.

ost(g|h) must be specified, if your list of variable
names contains names from specialized files for East Germany of years
1990 and 1991. Specify ost(g) if you have used either names from
gpost or gpkalost, ost(h) if you have used either names from
hpost or hpkalost and ost(g h) if you have used some specialized
East-files of both waves.

onlyost must be specified if you variable names
contains only names from the specialized files for East Germany.

oldnetto must be used if you are working with an old
version of the GSOEP database, i.e. with an version where the
variables anetto, bnetto ... znetto in the dataset ppfad have the
value 1 for interviews.

uc must be used if the variable list is upper
cased. This is helpful if you don't have a decent text editor that is
capable to lower-case the upper-cased variable names from SOEPinfo.

fast speeds up the retrieval. By default, and
do some extra work to check whether the variable names make
sense. This helps debugging lengthy list, but takes some time,
especially if the GSOEP data is stored on a slow network drive. Option
fast bypasses the additional check of variable names.

Example(s)

Constructing Longitudinal Individual Records

. soepuse gp109 gp6401e hp10901 ip10901 jp10901 using ., ost(g) w(1990/1993) f(p)

Linking Household Data to Individuals

. soepuse hp5401 hp5402 using ., w(1991) f(p)

. soepadd hh48, w(1991) f(h)

Linking Houshold Data to Individuals Across Waves

. soepuse hp5401 ip5401 hp5402 ip5402 using ., w(1991/1992) f(p)

. soepadd hh48 ih49, w(1991/1992) f(h)

Houshold Level Variables from Individual Data

. soepuse hp07 hp15 using ., f(p) w(1991)

. gen ft=1 if hp15==1

. gen pt=1 if hp15==2

. gen unemp=1 if hp07==1

. gen noinf=1 if hp15==9

. collapse (count) n_ft=ft n_pt=pt n_unemp=unemp n_noinf=noinf, by(cid hhhnr)

. soepadd htyphh1 htyphh2, w(1991) f(hgen)

Creating longitudinal data from waves 1984-2006 with vars from different sources

. soepuse

afamstd bfamstd cfamstd dfamstd efamstd ffamstd gfamstd hfamstd

ifamstd jfamstd kfamstd lfamstd mfamstd nfamstd ofamstd pfamstd

qfamstd rfamstd sfamstd tfamstd ufamstd vfamstd

egp08_84 egp08_85 egp08_86 egp08_87 egp08_88 egp08_89 egp08_90

egp08_91 egp08_92 egp08_93 egp08_94 egp08_95 egp08_96 egp08_97

egp08_98 egp08_99 egp08_00 egp08_01 egp08_02 egp08_03 egp08_04

egp08_05

using . ,

ftyp(pgen) waves(1984/2005)

design(3) keep(sex gebjahr) clear

. soepadd

ap6801 bp9301 cp9601 dp9801 ep89 fp108 gp109 hp10901

ip10901 jp10901 kp10401 lp10401 mp11001 np11701 op12301

pp13501 qp14301 rp13501 sp13501 tp14201 up14501 vp154

, ftyp(p) waves(1984/2005)

. soepadd

i1110284 i1110285 i1110286 i1110287 i1110288 i1110289 i1110290

i1110291 i1110292 i1110293 i1110294 i1110295 i1110296 i1110297

i1110298 i1110299 i1110200 i1110201 i1110202 i1110203 i1110204

i1110205

e1110184 e1110185 e1110186 e1110187 e1110188 e1110189 e1110190

e1110191 e1110192 e1110193 e1110194 e1110195 e1110196 e1110197

e1110198 e1110199 e1110100 e1110101 e1110102 e1110103 e1110104

e1110105

, ftyp(pequiv) waves(1984/2005)

Note

soepuse and soepadd are two little unambitious
helper programs. A far more advanced Stata program for working with
the GSOEP and many other panel data sets is
PanelWhiz by John Haisken DeNew.

Author

Ulrich Kohler, University of Potsdam, ukohler@uni-potsdam.de

Also see

Online: soepren (if installed), rgroup (if
installed), soepdo (if installed)