Cluster analysis expert needed

Posted by SSiSSa on Oct 14, 2014; 8:37pm
URL: http://spssx-discussion.165.s1.nabble.com/Cluster-analysis-expert-needed-tp5727586.html

Hello everyone,

I have a question regarding using a cluster method with binary data. I have more than 3000 cases and around 8 binary variables (I have recoded them as binary variables based on my theoretical approach to be able to use a hierarchical cluster method). My variables are: age, ethnicity, number of children, highest qualification, marital status, housing tenure, age of youngest child and economic activity.

My methodological approach is based on exploring cases as having multiple inequalities and as a result I am not interested in the strength/correlation of each of the variables to explain the classification but to discover types of cases as a whole (e.g. a person of a determined age, marital status and ethnicity are in a specific situation whereas other person with different characteristics are in other situation).That will be the first stage of my analysis.

The second stage of my analysis covers 26 variables (including the previous ones and employment related variables) and the same sample size. The variables in this stage are mixed (continuous, ordinal and categorical) and I have been advised to used two-step cluster method. Would it be possible to use other cluster methods for the second stage? The problem that I find with my variables is that because many of them are based on employment characteristics, there is a strong cleavage between cases that work and cases that do not work.

I am reluctant to use latent class analysis and factor analysis because my theoretical and methodological approach are based in exploring the case without differentiating between the variables but the case as a whole (complex/critical realism).

Would you have any advice for me? Thank you in advance!