Working with

Stats Canada Datasets

National Summer Institute
June 18, 2007
by Richard MacLennan, Ph.D.

Other Stats Can Licenses:

Federal Data Access Centre (FDAC)
Any federal department or employee
Direct Access (formal proposal) $3,500/mo
Indirect Access (informal proposal) $5,500/mo
Research Data Centres (RDC)
Formal proposal thru SSHRCC (no $)
Security clearance
E-Stat Online (educational resource)
Free, public access for some datasets
Police Administration Survey

Managing Complex Datasets

Beyond 20/20
Focus Dimension
Scrolling thru a
dimension
Moving dimensions
Nested dimensions

Re-arranging view of
the data
Export data

SPSS for Windows

Intro to SPSS
Aggregating data
Plotting Line Charts
Select Cases
Index(haystack,needle)

Run syntax file

Cross-tabs
Weight Cases

Stats Can Datasets - 2 Types

Beyond 20/20
.IVT files (tables)
Hyper-dimensional
Population data (Can. Centre for Justice Stats)
Generic, ASCII text files (.DAT)
2 dimensional (row X col)
SPSS, SAS syntax files to read
Stratified samples, surveys

Opening Data in Beyond 20/20

Database Structure (4D):

Move Dimension:

Select Dimension (Highlight):

Select spot to move to:<Tab><Tab><Tab><Tab>

Enter to move dimension: <Enter>

Final Data Layout Before Export

Import Dbase File into SPSS

Aggregate Data

Aggregate Options

Aggregate Function (Sum)

Graph Data (Line Chart)

Line Chart Type

Line Chart Options

Line Chart Output (Trend)

Line Chart Output (undistorted)

Unweighted Cases (biased sample)

Sex of respondent

Valid

Male
Female
Total

Frequency
11607
14269
25876

Percent
44.9
55.1
100.0

Valid Percent
44.9
55.1
100.0

Cumulative
Percent
44.9
100.0

General Social Survey Cycle 13 (Victimization)

Weighting Cases (unbiased sample)

Sex of respondent

Valid

Male
Female
Total

Frequency
11939893
12320432
24260326

Percent
49.2
50.8
100.0

Valid Percent
49.2
50.8
100.0

Cumulative
Percent
49.2
100.0

Project results for population (affects significance)

New Weight
= Old Weight Sample Size / Population Size
Sex of respondent

Valid

Male
Female
Total

Frequency
12735
13141
25876

Percent
49.2
50.8
100.0

Valid Percent
49.2
50.8
100.0

Unbiased sample AND retain sample size

Cumulative
Percent
49.2
100.0