To compute the average age of the heads of households, we first need to find the relevant variables. To find variables for age and head of household respectively, type:
lookfor age
lookfor head
This will tell us that the variables we need to answer this question are "age" and "rel_head". "rel_head" is a categorical variable and we need to understand how it is coded in order to single out respondents who are the head of the household. A natural first attempt to do so is to type:
tab rel_head
But the information given by STATA is not conclusive since the value labels are abbreviated. The safest way to understand the coding of rel_head is to go to the original survey. On page 4 of the household survey we find that heads of households are given a code of 1 if they are typically in residence and a code of 2 if absent.
Hence we can ascertain that the mean age of heads of households is 46.49 years
old by typing:
Variable | Type Obs Mean [95% Conf. Interval]
---------+----------------------------------------------------------
age | Arithmetic 964 46.4917 45.55842 47.42498
| Geometric 964 44.13523 43.2311 45.05828
| Harmonic 964 41.79505 40.91378 42.71511
---------+----------------------------------------------------------