# Can I convert nominal or ordinal into scale variable?

I have questions about division of household work with option- who does the following such as cooking, cleaning, washing? The option I have is:
I usually do, I mostly do, my partner mostly does, he usually does, some other person does.

Is this a nominal variable?

I have to convert this all together to traditional division of labor. Before doing so, I also want to understand how this is coded, so that, I can be clear. In the below syntax, what is the meaning of (source, 1, 5) result = 6. Does it mean all the other variable is 1 to 5 and option like shopping, cleaning is 6 ? Does 1 to 5 refers to 1 and the rest 6 ?

COMPUTE housework=M17.
DO REPEAT source = M221 M224 M225 M226
/result=washing shopping cleaning cooking.
IF RANGE(source,1,5) result=6 - source.
END REPEAT.


If so, when I add all the option like washing, shopping etc, the highest range represent traditional division of labor and can this be said a scale variable?

The part about coding is off topic here, but it looks like this is a method to reverse code the items, so that 1 becomes 5, 2 becomes 4 etc.

Whether your variable is nominal or ordinal or even convertible into a semi-continuous one depends on what you are intending to measure. But it has other problems: "I mostly do" and "I usually do" are more or less synonymous: Was this scale translated from some other language?

Sometimes, with similar type scales, you can sort of fake a continuous variable by changing it into some sort of percentage. Here, it would have to be "what percentage do you do?" because the "some other person does" throws things off.

Or, if you are looking at "traditional division" then the choices where "I mostly do", "I usually do" and "some other person does" might all be traditional while the ones where husband does would be less traditional.

• Yes, the question was translated and I need to work on it. Thank you for your response to my inquiry. I appreciate the information you have provided me, it's really helpful. – Sushma Dhital Feb 6 '17 at 2:30