Mapping the Household

Abstract

There are good reasons for wishing to record household relationships as precisely as possible, particularly in panel surveys. Change in the composition of the household has an effect on individual welfare. A household might be stable for many years or change composition several times in a matter of months. Analysis of the causes and effect of such transitions is critical to much social science. Precision in measurement and development of variables based on this is therefore equally critical. This article describes the development of a new form of household enumeration for use in the British Household Panel Survey. We first briefly describe the data-collection methods tested to fix household membership, and then their value as data-processing tools. Finally, a household relationship variable derived from these new methods is included in a multivariate analysis of financial allocative arrangements within the household. This shows distinctive patterns for households containing step-children, or other non nuclear extensions.