It is argued that instead of trying to use the complex everyday concept of household, one should record the various characteristics which go into this concept. From a systems perspective nine ways of characterising households as analytical units are identified. The distinction between absolute, distributional and relational data is, together with the distinction between three levels of characterising the household, used to discuss the utility of concepts like `class-position of household', `head of household', `Minimal Household Units' and kinship-based typologies of household.
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