Household

A household denotes all persons occupying the same housing unit. The U.S. Census Bureau defines a housing unit as

It is also a conceptual idea of a social institution insofar as it often refers to a group of people living and acting with some degree of unity. The term household thus incorporates an interdependent relationship between a physical space and the people occupying that space in several possible forms.

The household can be composed of a single person, related family members, unrelated people living in the same housing unit (e.g., roommates or employees), or a combination of related and unrelated people in the same housing unit. Household does not indicate group quarters, such as a barracks, prison, or group home. For classification purposes, the U.S. Census separates households into “family” [Page 309]and “nonfamily” with further specification of the householder as the person who owns, rents, or otherwise maintains the housing unit.

Survey research, marketing, and economic analyses often use the household as the unit of analysis as it implies a shared set of values because the people all live “under one roof.” In the past, a household might have indicated a single income stream by the head of household, but just as the term head of household has been removed from government definitions, so have many of the associated concepts. This change reflects the dissolution of the standard notion of the husband as the primary earner in a nuclear family. Similarly, the traditional use of household suggested a division of labor in domestic responsibilities that are no longer as common or accepted as they were in the past.

The federal government uses household as a unit of analysis for survey research that informs public policymakers. The Current Population Survey (CPS) samples about 50,000 households monthly to collect data on income, poverty, and unemployment, as well as periodic supplemental information such as demographics and voting behavior. While the CPS reporting unit is the individual, the respondent represents the household during the survey. Other government surveys that use household as a research focus include the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), the Consumer Expenditure Survey (CES), and the Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS).

The 2009 American Housing Survey, a Census Bureau information gathering effort, provided estimates of households using data from the 2000 U.S. Census. There were over 110 million households in the United States in 2009, with approximately two thirds being owned by the householder and one third being rented. The average occupancy per household was over 2.5 persons, and approximately two thirds of households did not have any children less than 18 years of age included. Over 20% of households included relatives beyond the immediate family (persons other than a spouse and children) while fewer than 10% of households included nonrelatives living with the family.

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