Using Beyond 20/20 to Convert to SPSS

Question

I'm looking for highest level of education by CSD for Newfoundland. It needs to be in raw data format (It's for an SPSS based stats course). Is this data, from either from 1996 or 2001 census, available as a PUMF? I can only find B2020 tables.

Answers

1) Your initial question sounded like you want CSD to be the unit of analysis: "I'm looking for highest level of education by CSD for Newfoundland." If this is the case, you were very close to solving your own question using the 2001 Census table, 95F0491XCB01002.IVT.

Here is an example of what a raw data format of this table for just CSD's from Newfoundland would look like using only the
first eight CSD's and first four Census characteristics:

Portugal Cove South (1001105) T 00000 60 20 35 0
Biscay Bay (1001109) T 00000 0 0 0 0
Trepassey (1001113) T 00000 135 25105 0
St. Shott's (1001120) T 00000 40 0 35 0
Division No. 1, Subd. U (1001124) SUN 190 40145 0
Cape Broyle (1001126) T 00000 70 60 10 0
Renews (1001131) T 00000 80 65 20 10
Fermeuse (1001136) T 00000 50 10 25 15

The columns of numbers represent, respectively, Total population 15 to 24 years by school attendance, Not attending school,
Attending school full time, and Attending school part time. These are just the first four Census characteristics of 42 contained in 95F0491XCB01002.IVT.

How to get this into SPSS quickly? Use B2020 to create the data structure by reorganizing the table so that Geography is
in the rows, Census characteristics are in the columns, and you've selected just CSD's in Newfoundland. Then do a File / Save As and output the data using the Excel Worksheet format.

Open this file in Excel and remove the first four rows in the spreadsheet, which contain stub headings from the B2020 table,
and re-save this file.

Next, start an SPSS session and use File / Open / Data and select Excel as the file type to open. In the "Opening Excel Data Source" dialogue box, uncheck the box for "Read variable names from the first row of data."

2) If I understand what you are looking for correctly, you are looking for the ascii version of table 95f0418xcb01006.ivt, yes?
That's the BST for highest degree, certificate or diploma, by age groups and sex, for census subdivisions.

You will find it in ascii format on the DLI ftp site, in
census/2001/Ascii/Topic-Based-Tabulations/education-in-canada-attendance-ascii/

There are no SPSS commands, but they could be created from the accompanying documentation. You will need to write a data list statement for a number of records per case (ie CSD).

The alternative to using the ascii file would be to use the Beyond 20/20 file to structure the rows the way you want them, then write the file out as a .csv or .xls file, and read that in to SPSS. It would be rather easier than working with the ascii file, at least while we can still read .ivt files.