Hello,

I have recently started learning Stata and have been playing around with data sets. The observations in the data I am using come from the UK Labour Force Survey. Here are the key variables I am working with:

GRSSWK – Gross weekly pay in the respondent’s main job, in pounds Sterling
SEX – The respondent’s reported gender, with 1 = male, 2 = female, −8 = no answer and −9 =does not apply
CONMON – The month the respondent started her current job
CONMPY – The year the respondent started her current job

I am trying to figure out whether the gender wage gap shrunk in Q2 2018 relative to before the regulation’s implementation? Using Q1 2018 as a comparison group.

How do I create a dummy variable which will categorise each quarter of the year. I tried this:

generate FirstQuarter = CONMON==January,Feburary,March,April
Error - January not found

I have also tried:

generate FirstQuarter = 0
replace FirstQuarter = 1 if CONMON="Janurary"

Error - invalid syntax

January is not a variable but a result. What would be the correct code?

I have found that using numbers works such as:
generate YEAR2017 = CONMPY==2017

Apologise for the basic question and thank you for your time.