A private household comprises either one person who provides his own essential needs or a group of related or unrelated persons who join together to provide their essential needs. Such a group therefore recognizes the authority of one person: the head of the household.
A collective household is a group of persons who live in camps, institutions or boarding schools. They therefore fall under one of the following categories:

- Servicemen, policemen and gendarmes living in camps or barracks without their families
- Boarders in high schools, colleges and other institutions of learning
- Prisoners;
- Persons living in hotels, boarding houses or hostels ;
- Patients living in hospitals and other health establishments for more than 6 months
- Workers living in worksites without their families: members of religious communities living in convents or in boarding houses