Obtaining Population Pyramids

  1. From the menus choose:

    Graphs > Legacy Dialogs > Population Pyramid

  2. In the Define Population Pyramid dialog box, specify whether counts are computed from the data or are taken from a variable that contains preaggregated values. For example, if you have a variable that contains population values for different age groups, you would select Get Counts from variable and drag and drop the variable into the Variable field. If none of the variables contains preaggregated data, select Compute counts from data.
  3. From the variable list, drag and drop the variable that you want to summarize into the Show Distribution Over field. This variable will appear on the vertical axis of the population pyramid. If your data includes a variable with preaggregated counts, you must specify a categorical variable for the distribution. Otherwise, the variables can be categorical or scale.
  4. Drag and drop a categorical variable into the Split By field. This variable determines the split of each population pyramid. If there are more than two categories in the variable, the resulting chart will include multiple population pyramids, with the direction of the bars alternating for each category.
  5. If you want to panel the chart, drag and drop a variable into the Panel By group. See the topic Paneled Charts for more information.
  6. If necessary, click Titles to specify the title, subtitle, and footnotes to appear in the chart. See the topic Chart Titles (Creating Charts) for more information.
  7. If you want to format the chart using an existing template, select Use chart specifications from and then click File to locate the template file. See the topic Use Template from File for more information.
  8. If the Show Distribution Over variable is continuous (scale), click Scale Options to change the binning (grouping) settings for bars on the vertical axis. See the topic Scale Options for Population Pyramids for more information. If the variable is categorical, click Categorical Options to specify whether groups defined by missing values are displayed.

To Change the Measurement Level of a Variable

  1. Right-click the variable in the variable list (you can do this only in the variable list, before moving the variable to a specific field).
  2. Select Categorical or Scale from the pop-up menu.