Family blending explained Place Forecast Feature

Referenced by 3 other explainers

Family blending shows the make-up of couple families with children. It sorts these families into seven groups. The groups are based on whose children live in the family. Same-sex couples are included throughout. The split into intact, step, and blended follows ABS classification. It is based on past and current relationships in the ABS data. It is not a judgement about how the family sees itself.

The figures come from Census data. The Australian Bureau of Statistics collects them.

ABS does not publish a separate Not stated count for family blending; non-responses are folded into the published family-type totals.

This page counts only couple families with children. Lone-parent families are not in these figures. See the Household type page, where they appear under One parent families. Couples without children, group households, and lone-person households are also not here. They live on the Household type page too. The total on this page is smaller than the total on Household type.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander kinship systems share care across many adults and homes. So do many culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) homes. ABS picks one primary family per household. The seven groups split these wider patterns in ways that may not match how those households see themselves.

The key cut is whose children are in the family.

• Intact families: a couple with only their own children. The children are the children of both partners.
• Step families: a couple where one partner has a child from a past relationship. The couple has no children together.
• Blended families: a couple with both kinds of children. There is at least one child from a past relationship and at least one child they have together.
• Other couple families: any couple family that does not fit the three groups above.

The ABS adds a second cut. It asks if other children are in the home. Other children means children of one of the partners that ABS records, from outside the current couple. So most groups appear twice on the page. One row is for no other children present. The other row is for other children present. For most areas the no other children row is the larger of the two.

The Census records what the family reported on Census night. Children means adopted, foster, or children of either partner that ABS records.

The total counts couple families with children in occupied private dwellings. It does not count empty homes. It does not count hotels, aged-care homes, hostels, or shared housing. A home can hold more than one family. Only the couple-with-children families in it are counted here.

Place Forecast splits each SA1 figure down to mesh blocks and sums them back to the area you see. The downscaling glossary explains the method and its limits.

Each family-blending group at the LGA level matches the ABS figure. This is LGA anchoring.

For service choices about one community, read small-area figures as patterns, not exact counts. Check them with community organisations before drawing strong claims.