Practical International Data Management - Householding

Housholding is the practice of identifying people wihtin a data file who are members of the same household. This allows a single communication to be sent to each household, reducing duplication of effort, and can be used to show relationships between people. It can have a negative impact if applied incorrectly. Householding methodologies use scores to show the potential accuracy of any decision made.

The success of this methodology is dependent upon the country and culture in which it is being used. It requires that addressing systems and family composition patterns support the methodology. Thus, in countries where a single address is usually occupied by a single nuclear family, and those family members share characteristics such as an inherited surname, the methodology has uses. It is often used in Anglo Saxon countries. In other countries and societies, though, it will not work well (or at all), and should be used with caution (or not at all).

Processing

Potential problems with householding in different cultures:

• Where names are very common, two people in the same household might share a name but be unrelated.
• Addressing systems may assign a large number of living units to the same postal address, so that unrelated people with the same surname become linked whereas they do not share a residence. Germany is a good example of this.
• Assumptions that a family unit consists of a male, female and offspring is outdated in some cultures and never correct in others. A household might include extended family members, consist of homosexual couples and so on.
• In many countries different members of the same family may have different surnames, family names or patronymics. Examples: muslim countries, Iceland, Québec, many northern and western European societies.

Resources

• Borderlands – the address conundrum Graham Rhind looks at addressing in Germany, where a single street addres can contain a whole range of residents. (Cached version)
• Household Householding. Henrik Liliendahl Sørensen looks at Householding, August 2009. (Cached version)

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