Interviewer instructions
1.5.4 Household
It consists of one or more persons, related or unrelated, who live together and make common provision for food. They regularly take all their food from the same pot, and/or share the same grain store (nkhokwe) or pool their incomes for the purpose of purchasing food. Persons in a household may live in one or more dwelling units.
"Usual residents" will be defined as those people who stayed continuously in the household being enumerated for a period of 6 months or more. The questions to be asked in case of doubt, if a person visits home regularly will be "Where does he spend most of his time?" or "nthawi zambiri amakhalitsa kuti?" in Chichewa. If he/she spends more than 6 months in a certain area then that will be his/her area of residence.
1.6 Types of households
There are three major types of households, namely, regular, collective and homeless.
1.6.1 Regular household
A household whose members share dwelling units and meals during the census period.
1.6.1.1 Special type of regular households:
1.6.1.1.1 Polygamous household(s): a situation where there is one husband and more than one wife and their children.
a.) Consider as one household if they live and eat together from the same pot and use common budget.
b.) If not, count as several households.
Note: a husband should be enumerated in the household he slept last night. If all the wives are in the same EA ensure that a husband is enumerated only once.
1.6.2 Collective household
Refers to a large group of people who live together and sharing common facilities such as kitchen, toilet, lounge, and dormitories. In such situation the residents may not have complete independent quarters that qualify as housing units as their living quarters during the census period. Examples of collective households are hospitals, hotels, lodges, guest houses, camps, institutions (charitable homes, military barracks, boarding schools, convents, prisons, etc.)
In some instances there will be both regular household units and collective quarters on the premises e.g. the hospital staff may have their own dwelling units within the hospital premises; employees in hotels may have separate apartments which qualify as dwelling units; etc.
1.6.3 Homeless
Persons without regular shelter but are found together should be enumerated as one household.
Section L: Identification Particulars for All Households
L7. Type of household:
Find out the type of household as soon as you start the interview. Types of households are well described on page 8 and 9 of the manual. If the household is regular, shade 1 and ask all the questions. If it is either hospital/hotel/lodge, other collective or homeless, shade the appropriate code and ask questions P3 to P8 only; other information will be collected from their usual residences.
