PROC TABULATE by Example, Second Edition

Weight the Results I

There is one other way that you can alter the values in a table, and that is by weighting them. This is not really a reformatting of the table values but rather a recalculating of the table values.

Weighting is frequently used when the data represents a sample of a larger population. For example, you might have data from an opinion poll of 1,000 adults nationwide. To extrapolate the results to the national population, you use weights. For example, if the national population is 50% female and 50% male, but your sample is only 40% female, you can use weights to adjust your results. If you give each observation for females a weight of 1.25 (.50/.40) and each observation for males a weight of 0.83 (.50/.60), you can adjust for ...