Classification and coding

The criteria used to classify the relationship between families are: 

• whether the family is present in a multi-family household, and
• the type of relationship that one family reference person has to the family reference person of the primary family. The types of relationships that can be separately identified are immediate family, either vertically extended (parents, grandparents, children, grandchildren) or horizontally extended (brothers, sisters). More distant family members (e.g. aunt, uncle, cousin) will be grouped together into an 'Other related family'. If the family reference persons are not related to each other the relationship will be recorded as 'Unrelated family'.

The types of relationships that can be regarded as family relationships are described in 'Relationship in Household - Classification and Coding'.

The standard classification and code structure for 'Relationship between families' is:

This classification is only applicable to non-primary families in multi-family households.

'Relationship between families' is not applicable to any other variables.