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HOUSEHOLD AND FAMILY

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NUMBER OF FAMILY MEMBERS IN FAMILY

This data item describes the number of people in a family, including children under 15 years.

In the flat file structure, all members of the family will have the same number assigned to their records for any given month (see File Structure for more information). To identify individual families, refer to Family ID [ABSFID]

The Number of family members in family is based on the number of people aged over 15 years (who are in the labour force survey and appear as records in the CURF) and the number of children under 15 years (who aren't in the survey but appear as a data item for parents).

The data item is limited to '2 or more children' (see Number of children aged 0 to 14 years [FAMNKIDC]).

For this data item, the number of people in a family relates to the smallest possible number of people, and can be thought of as "at least this many people".

Examples:

• a couple family with a dependant aged over 15 years is a family with exactly 3 people (no children under 15 years).
• a couple family with 1 child is a family with exactly 3 people (as the exact number of children is known).

However;

• a lone parent with '2 or more children' is a family with 3 or more people (the exact number of children is not known).

All of these families are reported as having '3 or more people,' even though the first two examples are known to be exactly 3.

Families that have couples where only one partner has been recorded in the labour force survey have an additional member added to the Number of family members in family to represent this absent partner (See Social marital status [SOCMARCE] for more information).

Non-family members are excluded from this data item as they are not members of a family and are identified by a series of supplementary codes to define their relationship to the family, families or other members in the household.

People in special dwellings (see Residence Status [URSTATC]) are treated as single person 'households' (See Household ID [ABSHID]), so are excluded from this data item.

For more information on families and how ABS defines family characteristics, refer to the publication Family, Household and Income Unit Variables, 2005 (cat. no. 1286.0).

Identifier:		FAMNUMC
Level:		Family
Source:		LFS
Frequency:		Monthly
Population:		All
Categories:
2		2 family members
3		3 or more family members
4		4 or more family members
5		5 or more family members
6		6 or more family members
7		7 or more family members
8		8 or more family members
90		Not a family member - Unrelated individual living in family household
91		Not a family member - Group household
92		Not a family member - Lone Person
93		Not a family member - Visitor
98		Special dwelling

Related Information

Labour Force Survey Standard Products and Data Item Guide: Family (cat. no. 6103.0)
Labour Force Survey Standard Products and Data Item Guide: Number of family members (cat. no. 6103.0)
Labour Statistics: Concepts, Sources and Methods: 16.14 Families and Households (cat. no. 6102.0.55.001)
Family, Household and Income Unit Variables, 2005: The concept of the family (cat. no. 1286.0)
Family, Household and Income Unit Variables, 2005: Core variables describing family structure (cat. no. 1286.0)
Family, Household and Income Unit Variables, 2005: Definitions of common concepts (cat. no. 1286.0)
Family, Household and Income Unit Variables, 2005: Family composition (cat. no. 1286.0)
Census Dictionary, 2011: Family (cat. no. 2901.0)
Census Dictionary, 2011: Family Composition [FMCF] (cat. no. 2901.0)

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