African Demography Working Paper Series
Document Type
Working Paper
Date of this Version
February 1981
Abstract
The paper starts with a discussion of the concepts of household and family in historical and contemporary populations and summarizes the debate about size of households. A study of the average size of households and compounds recorded by censuses and surveys in tropical Africa is done followed by a discussion of the various definitions of households. Finally an illustration is given using data collected on the Serer, an ethnic group in Senegal.
Keywords
Senegal, Serer, Africa, tropical Africa, family size, family structure, households, household composition, domestic group, developing countries, surveys, censuses, kin networks, collective households, compounds, residential mobility, residential patterns, household dynamics, household structure
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Date Posted: 16 November 2007
This document has been peer reviewed.
Comments
African Demography Working Papers Working Paper No. 5 February 1981