Referenced by 6 other explainers
Household type shows how people live together at home. It sorts an area's households into six main types.
The figures come from Census data published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
The six types are:
Two ABS groups are not shown here. They are Visitor only households and Other non-classifiable households. Their cell counts are too small for ABS to publish at small-area level. So the total here sits a few per cent below the ABS LGA figure.
Household types only apply to occupied private dwellings. They exclude empty homes and non-private dwellings such as hotels, aged-care homes and hostels.
ABS does not publish a Not stated count for household type. Non-responses are classified into the published totals.
When a household has more than one family, the Census uses the primary family. Take a household with grandparents, parents and children. It may be counted as a couple family with children. The coding decides.
Other ABS tables show same-sex couples, de facto couples, step-families and blended families. The broad groups here do not split them out.
These groups follow ABS classification rules. They do not reflect how people describe their own family.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander kinship systems share care across many adults and homes. Many culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) homes do too. The six ABS groups miss both.
See the marker methodology for how these figures are built and its limits.
Treat small-area figures as patterns, not exact counts. Check them with the relevant community-controlled organisation. This follows Indigenous Data Sovereignty principles.