Household family

Identifying and definitional attributes

• Community Services (retired), Superseded 27/04/2007

A person's family may form the central core of their support network. The basis of a family is formed by identifying the presence of a couple relationship, lone parent-child relationship or other blood relationship. A family may or may not live together and this co-residence may change over time. Related persons who live in other households may participate in the lives of family members they do not live with in a variety of ways, including financial, material, physical, emotional, legal and spiritual. For instance, frail older people may receive help from their adult children even though they do not live in the same household.

Nonetheless, the household family has been traditionally viewed as a building block of society and is the predominant unit reported statistically and historically.

Data on families, including co-resident families, are essential elements for the study of the well being of family groups and in this way for the study of the well being of individuals. They can be a tool indicating the type of and level of support to which a person has access.