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What method must be chosen for converting a continuous variable(socio-economic ratio) into a categorical variable, the quantiles are as follows:

df['ses'].quantile([0,0.25,0.5,0.75,1])

0.00     0.000
0.25     1.070
0.50     1.979
0.75     3.341
1.00    11.889
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Whenever I want to convert a continuous feature into categorical with bins, I use one of the following two ways.

  1. Freedman–Diaconis rule (wikipedia source)

Bin width = 2 x IQR(x) x n^(-1/3)

Where IQR(x) is max-min and n is the number of your observations in your sample.

  1. Frequency Bins

You get such a bin width that each of them will have the same number of observations.

I don't have a rule of thumb, where to use each of them. I usually try both and measure the impact on accuracy. Then decide which I will use in the final model.

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  • $\begingroup$ but won't frequency bins we flawed if most of the observations have same or similar value and some values are far apart, especially in cases where socioeconomic factors are involved. $\endgroup$
    – Jibin Mathew
    Feb 22, 2019 at 9:14
  • $\begingroup$ That's why there isn't a rule of thumb imo. You should try and evaluate the result based on your own data. $\endgroup$
    – Tasos
    Feb 22, 2019 at 9:21

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