JPSC file structure

About the recording sheet (file)

  • The data file is provided in CSV format, and the variable name is included in the first line (header line) of each file.

  • In JPSC, the survey times are represented by “p + survey times”, and each folder contains the data of each survey time. For example, the “p1” folder contains the CSV files of the 1st survey data.

  • In years when a new cohort is added, there are two datasets (folders), one for the existing cohort and one for the new cohort. For example, for the 11th survey, there are two datasets, “p11ab” and “p11c”.

  • The data for each year is divided into columns and stored in 5 files. The numbers from 1 to 5 at the end of the CSV file name are used to identify the split data.

About variable names

  • Variable names are numbered serially with Q or P as a prefix. This number does not correspond to the question number on the questionnaire.

  • The same question item is assigned a common variable name for each survey. However, even if the content of the survey is the same, if the question text or answer options are changed, in principle, the variable name is changed. (e.g. Working status

  • As a general rule, variables starting with P are recorded only in the year when the respondent first participated in the survey. This is mainly pre-survey information about the respondent.