See household disambiguation page for other meanings of household.
A household, in the context of surveys on social conditions or income such as EU-SILC or the Household budget survey (HBS), is defined as a housekeeping unit or, operationally, as a social unit:
- having common arrangements;
- sharing household expenses or daily needs;
- in a shared common residence.
A household includes either one person living alone or a group of people, not necessarily related, living at the same address with common housekeeping, i.e. sharing at least one meal per day or sharing a living or sitting room.
Collective households or institutional households (as opposed to private households) are, for instance: hospitals, old people’s homes, residential homes, prisons, military barracks, religious institutions, boarding houses and workers’ hostels, etc.