Interviewer instructions
This question solicits the social relationship that the person shares with the head of household. Indicate from the list the person’s relationship to the head of household. The person listed in the first row in the roster should always be ‘head’ since the head of the household should always be listed in the first row, regardless or whether or not the head is present at the time of interview. Other members should be identified in one of the other categories listed. The wife/husband is the married or unmarried partner of the head. Members of the household who are not related to the head will be coded “non-relative”. Particular care must be taken in recording relationship information when the respondent is someone other than the head of the household; clarification must be made to the respondent that we are interested in the relationship of the person to the head of the household, not to the respondent.
A BOARDER or TENANT is someone who pays for food and lodging. If a paying guest lives with the household being interviewed, he/she is not part of that household. You will often need to probe to see if a person is a household member or a tenant. Some tenants pay in kind rather than cash, and this can lead to confusion.
An MKATABA SERVANT is a servant who has a contract with the family, and is paid in cash or in kind according to that contract. The contract may be written, or it may be an unwritten verbal agreement. Usually a contract is for a certain length of time, such as one year.
A MAKUBALIANO SERVANT is not a blood relation to the head or his wife but lives and eats meals with the household, and works for household, either in the house, in the fields, or with the livestock. However, in contrast to the mkataba servant, the makubaliano does not have a written or a verbal contract with the household. Any compensation received by the makubaliano servant is arbitrarily determined by the household head or other household members and is more like a gift than a payment for services. If this makubaliano servant has been present in the household for at least three months of the past 12 months, then s/he is a household member.
The category UNRELATED PERSON is a person who is not a blood relative to the head and not a servant, but who lives with the household. If this person lived with the household for at least three months of the last 12 months, then he/she is a household member. Examples are students or friends who live with the HH.
ADOPTION: First, we need to make sure that the child is not related to the household head before we fill in “ADOPTION” (i.e that the child does not fit any of the categories in the provided relation list). If the interviewer is definite that the child is adopted THEN they should consider both formal (legal) and informal adoption.
STEP CHILD: If the concerned child of the biological child of the spouse of the household head BUT not of the head THEN we say that the child is a STEP-CHILD of the head.