Summary Statistics for Categorical Variables

The basic statistics available for categorical variables are counts and percentages. You can also specify custom summary statistics for totals and subtotals. These custom summary statistics include measures of central tendency (such as mean and median) and dispersion (such as standard deviation) that may be suitable for some ordinal categorical variables. See the topic Custom Total Summary Statistics for Categorical Variables for more information.

Count. Number of cases in each cell of the table or number of responses for multiple response sets.

Unweighted Count. Unweighted number of cases in each cell of the table. This only differs from count if weighting is in effect See the topic weighting for more information.

Column percentages. Percentages within each column. The percentages in each column of a subtable (for simple percentages) sum to 100%. Column percentages are typically useful only if you have a categorical row variable.

Row percentages. Percentages within each row. The percentages in each row of a subtable (for simple percentages) sum to 100%. Row percentages are typically useful only if you have a categorical column variable.

Layer Row and Layer Column percentages. Row or column percentages (for simple percentages) sum to 100% across all subtables in a nested table. If the table contains layers, row or column percentages sum to 100% across all nested subtables in each layer.

Layer percentages. Percentages within each layer. For simple percentages, cell percentages within the currently visible layer sum to 100%. If you do not have any layer variables, this is equivalent to table percentages.

Table percentages. Percentages for each cell are based on the entire table. All cell percentages are based on the same total number of cases and sum to 100% (for simple percentages) over the entire table.

Subtable percentages. Percentages in each cell are based on the subtable. All cell percentages in the subtable are based the same total number of cases and sum to 100% within the subtable. In nested tables, the variable that precedes the innermost nesting level defines subtables. For example, in a table of Marital status within Gender within Age category, Gender defines subtables.

Percentages are affected by the base (denominator) used to calculate them, and there are a number of options for determining the base. See the topic Percentage Base for more information.

Multiple response sets can have percentages based on cases, responses, or counts. See the topic Summary Statistics for Multiple Response Sets for more information.

Stacked Tables

For percentage calculations, each table section defined by a stacking variable is treated as a separate table. Layer Row, Layer Column, and Table percentages sum to 100% (for simple percentages) within each stacked table section. The percentage base for different percentage calculations is based on the cases in each stacked table section.