# Use of sampling weights for calculating population totals?

**URL:** https://forum.ipums.org/t/use-of-sampling-weights-for-calculating-population-totals/616
**Category:** General
**Created:** [August 23, 2014, 6:22pm UTC](https://forum.ipums.org/t/use-of-sampling-weights-for-calculating-population-totals/616 "2014-08-23T18:22:00Z")
**Posts on this page:** 2
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![DEMPOP](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a8b319/32.png) [@DEMPOP](https://forum.ipums.org/u/DEMPOP)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2014, 6:22pm UTC](https://forum.ipums.org/t/use-of-sampling-weights-for-calculating-population-totals/616/1 "2014-08-23T18:22:00Z")

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### Author: ![grover](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.ipums.org/grover/32/5_2.png) [@grover](https://forum.ipums.org/u/grover)
#### Post date: [August 25, 2014, 7:49pm UTC](https://forum.ipums.org/t/use-of-sampling-weights-for-calculating-population-totals/616/2 "2014-08-25T19:49:00Z")

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The weights provided with IPUMS data give the number of people in the national population represented the single respondent. So, a respondent with a weight of 5.00 represents 5 people in the national population and in a frequency distribution this respondent would be counted 5 times. Most statistical software packages have built in commands for applying weights in analyses and I would recommend looking into the documentation of your statistical program for more details on how to apply these weights.

I hope this helps.