Families and Households, Behavioral Demography of

Abstract

The basic idea of a household is clear—a typical dictionary definition is ‘a person or group of persons occupying a common dwelling.’ In demography, the concept has been refined operationally, with the household as the basic unit for census enumeration and for sampling in social surveys. The household concept emphasises coresidence in the same dwelling, in contrast with family and kinship concepts which emphasise relationships based on marriage, consanguinity (descent from a common ancestor), and fictive kinship (e.g., adoption). Despite its apparent simplicity and obviousness, the household concept also has been subject to continuing criticism, viewed as an abstraction that does not adequately match social reality. It has been characterized as abstract and artificial, too limited in its compass, ethnocentric (time and culture-bound), and static. Such criticisms have not led to abandonment of the household concept. The household continues to be recognized as the natural unit for economic studies of consumption (notably of housing and of consumer durables). Indeed, the concept gained theoretical status with the advent of the ‘New Home Economics,’ which views the household as a key production unit as well. At the same time, new data-collection and analysis has dealt with some of the criticisms. Studies of kinship patterns have documented close relations among kin not confined to the four walls of one household. Economists have studied intergenerational and other transfers among kin. Early studies of the ‘family life cycle’ have been improved on, partly due to the availability of event histories and longitudinal data. The life-course sequence is becoming a central notion in household and family demography. New empirical trends continue to challenge older notions of the household. In some societies, a substantial proportion of households now contain one person, an aggregate figure that may grow with further population ageing. High and rising rates of divorce and the spread of relatively unstable cohabiting unions lead to more lone-parent (mostly long-mother) households. And practices such as joint custody of children, Caribbean-style ‘visiting unions,’ and the ownership of ‘second homes’ question the very notion that each person belongs to one and only one household. New research techniques will be brought into to service to deal with the multidimensionality of household membership, and with the notion of degrees of membership. Newer ideas in the philosophy of science will lead to a more relaxed acceptance of many different definitions of household, each appropriate to use for particular theoretical or practical purposes. Finally, a resurgence interest in the concept of social capital seems likely to provide a new theoretical orientation to family and household demography, one that will focus more attention on key psychological and social functions served by these small social groups, functions relating to both the early development of human beings and their continuing health and well-being.