Metadata: Household types

Statbel and National Register, processed by Statistics Flanders

Eurostat

Household: the demarcation of a household is based on being registered at the same main place of residence in the National Register. The figures only take into account the legal situation, which may differ from the actual situation. For example, some young people may live alone or cohabit, but remain officially domiciled with their parents.

Private and collective households: households are broken down into private and collective households. Collective households are: religious communities, nursing homes, orphanages, student and workers’ homes, hospitals and prisons (definition Statbel). All households that are not collective households are private households.

Reference person of the household: the person who represents the household in contacts with the authorities (definition Statbel). The designation of a reference person within the household is necessary to situate the position (relationship) of each member within the household towards this reference person.

7 types of private households can be identified:

• single person household (persons living alone aged 15 years or older);
• married couple without children living at home (+ other persons living in that household, if any);
• married couple with child(ren) living at home (+ other persons living in that household, if any);
• unmarried couple without children living at home (+ other persons living in that household, if any);
• unmarried couple with child(ren) living at home (+ other persons living in that household, if any);
• single parent household (+ other persons living in that household, if any);
• other household types: All households not listed in the previous types, such as brothers/sisters living together, friends living together, etc.

Children of a couple or of a single parent concern own children, stepchildren, adopted children and foster children. The breakdown by type of household does not take into account the age of the child(ren) living at home or the fact that a child living at home could have a partner and/or own children.

Partners who live together without being married can be legally cohabiting or actually cohabiting. Legal cohabitations are listed in the National Register. Partners who actually live together are not registered as such in the National Register.

All rules for defining the types of households are described in detail in a Technical Report (Lodewijckx & Deboosere, 2008 (in Dutch)).

Some households consist of the core family (couple with or without children living at home; single parent household with children living at home) with other persons living with them, such as parents (in law) of the reference person, son/daughter-in-law, grandchildren, other members of the family and unrelated persons.

Relationship between household type and position of the persons within the household

• Strictly speaking, not married (with civil status of unmarried, divorced or widowed).

The Statbel source publishes statistical series on the legal population. This is based on the National Register of natural persons and shows the situation of the population on 1 January of the calendar year, which can be derived - on condition of additional checks by Statbel - from the entries in the population register (Belgians and foreigners who are authorised to reside in Belgium) and the register of foreigners (foreigners who are allowed or authorised to stay in Belgium for more than 3 months, for a fixed or indefinite period of time). Certain categories of foreigners (e.g. diplomatic and consular staff) are exempt from registration in the population registers. In some cases they may be registered at their own request. They are only included in the population figures if this is the case.

It concerns the households of the legal population. This is the population as recorded in the civil registers of the municipalities. It is the sum of the population register (Belgians living in a Belgian municipality and foreigners with a permanent residence permit), the register of foreigners (foreigners with a temporary residence permit), the register of civil servants of the European Union and the register of privileged foreigners of NATO or SHAPE.

Asylum seekers (applicants for international protection) who are registered in the waiting register do not belong to the legal population and are therefore not included in these figures. Belgians abroad (registered in the consular registers of diplomatic missions and consular posts abroad) and embassy staff are also excluded from the legal population.

The legal population may thus be different from the actual population. The actual population includes both persons registered in the waiting register and persons who have not been registered in the municipality.

Since 2015, Statbel has been processing and publishing the data on household types itself. The unmarried or married character of cohabiting partners/parents is inferred from the presence of an unrelated person or a spouse, respectively, in the household and not from the marital status of the persons concerned. For example, there may be married partners who cohabit unmarried with another partner. Over the past decade, the number of residents with an unknown marital status has been increasing. This mainly concerns residents who do not have the Belgian nationality or a Belgian origin. As long as those residents have not proved their marital status by submitting the necessary documents, they are added by Statbel to the group of unmarried people. In 2019, for example, 30% of unmarried cohabiting partners with a non-Belgian nationality had an unknown marital status, compared to 0.15% for unmarried cohabiting partners with Belgian nationality. Not (yet) having submitted the necessary proof of marital status thus increases the proportion of unmarried cohabiting partners/parents in the group with a non-Belgian nationality or origin. The increase over time in the number of children born to unmarried parents is partly due to the increase of children of foreign nationality or origin whose parents have not (yet) submitted the necessary documents to prove their marriage.

The European comparison is based on EU-SILC, its methodology may vary between countries and also lead to larger annual differences, e.g. due to sampling fluctuations.

National Register: Website (in Dutch)(opens in new window)
Statbel: Population(opens in new window)
Eurostat: EU SILC(opens in new window)

Household types