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rrecode

Recode in R not producing desired output

I'm trying to recode age variables into three categroies in R but it's not allocating them properly:

data_2017_18$ageband3 <- 
dplyr::recode(data_2017_18$age, '1:30' = 1L, 
'31:50' = 2L, '51:99' = 3L)

I'd assume the crosstab with age would be:

ageband 1 2 3

However, when I look at the dataset, it's putting everybody's age value into an 'ageband3' variable.

Grateful for any suggestions.

Thanks!

Solution

  • I think there is no need for recode. The easiest solution is to use cut:

    data_2017_18$ageband3 <- cut(data_2017_18$age, cut(1:100, breaks = c(0, 30,50, Inf))

    Use cut(data_2017_18$age, breaks = c(0, 30,50, Inf), labels = c(1,2,3)) if your prefer labelling your levels 1,2 and 3. But R handles quite well interval values ([0,30] for instance)