Notes
The questionnaire asked about the relationship of each person in the household to the head or acting head of the household. The list of relationships which could be specified were as follows:
• Head/acting head of household
• Husband/wife/partner
• Son/daughter/stepchild/adopted child
• Brother/sister
• Father/mother
• Grandparent
• Grandchild
• Other relative (e.g. in-laws)
• Non-related person
As respondents were only asked about the relationship to the head (or acting head) of the household, some marriage and parent/child relationships in households cannot be identified. For example, if a household
consisted of two unrelated couples, the relationships would be:
Person 1: Head, Person 2: Husband/wife, Person 3: Non-related person, Person 4: Non-related person.
Thus the second couple would not be identified as a couple.
It was dependent upon respondents to nominate the head of the household and no guidelines were provided on the questionnaire as to who this should be. The interviewer’s instructions defined head of household as ‘a male or a female who assumes responsibility for the household’.
The category ‘Son/daughter’ includes stepchildren and adopted children as well as natural children. On the questionnaire, ‘in-laws’ was given as an example for ‘Other relative’ although many other relationships would also fall within this category.
Although this question was not included in personal questionnaires, it is not possible to distinguish personal and household questionnaires on the dataset. Thus, persons in personal questionnaires have been included in the ‘Unspecified’ category.
