7. Position within household (Refer also to explanatory sheet):
[] Head of household (HH) or sole person in household
[] Spouse of HH
[] Consensual-union-partner of HH
[] Daughter, son (step and adopted)
[] Spouse/partner of son/daughter
[] Grandchild or his/her spouse/partner
[] Mother, father (parent-in-law, step parent, grandparent)
[] Otherwise related (e.g. brother, aunt, nephew)
[] Not related
7. Position in household:
Explanation: In order to show the relationship of household members to families, please mark the relationship the person has to the "head of household." Usually, the person contributing the most to the household income is to be designated as the head of household. If income is more or less equal, it is up to the household to designate the person who is to be marked as head of household.
In households consisting solely of unrelated persons, it is irrelevant to family and household statistics who is marked as the head of household.
For children who were brought into the marriage or consensual union, "daughter/son" should be marked, [p. 76] even if the latter are blood children of the husband or wife only.
The term "head of household" is felt to be disagreeable by some persons. Because of that, other expressions were sought in preceding pilot surveys. The results were, however, not encouraging: the understanding of the question and the usefulness of the answers were insufficient. For question-technical reasons, it had to be reverted back to the archaic (but understood by all) term "head of household."
With this information the families living in a household are statistically delimited and their relation to the remaining household members is depicted. Data about the different family types (full families, single parent families, etc.) is important for the planning of family and socio-political measures, for example: level of the family subsidy, scaling of the child tax credit, fare reductions for families on public transportation.