For directions on reading the variable description see Data Dictionary Introduction.

Availability:

1850	1860	1870	1880	1900	1910	1920	1940	1950	1960	1970	1980	1990
			X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X

Universe:
All persons.

Codes and Frequencies - General, Detailed

Description:
RELATE describes an individual’s relationship to the head of household or householder. Beginning in 1880, data on household relationship was asked of every person. The general relationship code is reasonably comparable across years. The detailed code makes distinctions that cannot be made in all years.

The relationship codes are divided into two categories—relatives (codes 1-10) and non-relatives (codes 11-12). The codes for relatives are self-explanatory; the non-relative codes are divided into three groups: "Partner, Friend, Visitor," roughly described as persons who do not pay or work for their accommodations (unless they share ownership), "Other Non-Relatives" including those persons paying or working for accommodations, and "Institutional Inmates." See the comparability discussion for further information about the coding scheme.

Comparability:
The general code is comparable across all years. Users should note, however, that there are some fundamental differences between the early period (before 1940) and the later period (1940-1990). Group quarters residence is a primary distinction in the relationship variable for the later period, but before 1940 relationship to head was recorded regardless of group quarters status. Persons classified as related to the head (codes 1 through 10) in the early period would have been classified in the ‘Other non-relative" category based on their group quarters status in the later years. We decided not to impose consistency because it would have resulted in the loss of too much information in the early period.

Users may recode RELATE for higher comparability, but we recommend caution because a recode may lose considerable information, changing what were considered ordinary households in the early years into group quarters. To impose the 1970 group quarters definition on all years, create a new general category "14"—‘Non-institutional group quarters members’—and classify all group quarters members from categories one through twelve into the new category. The general codes would remain the same, only categories one through twelve would be strictly household members, and categories thirteen and fourteen would contain group quarters members, separated into institutional and non-institutional members.

In addition to difference before and after 1940, the definition of group quarters is not consistent across years; see GQ for more information.

Some of the following categories posed unique problems due to changing definitions and categories across census years:

Head/householder:

The wording of the question changed in 1980 and 1990 from "relationship to head" to "relationship to householder." Prior to 1970, enumerators were instructed to record the male as the head of household for all married couples, regardless of the couple’s designation of a head. The term "householder" was introduced in 1980 and allowed any adult in the family to be the reference person.

Partner/friend:

This category changes considerably in meaning across census years. Before 1960, the category "partner" refers to a non-relative who shares the home and expenses with the head, including responses such as co-head and business partner. In 1960 and 1970, the ‘Partner/friend’ value is a residual category for all non-relatives in the household who are not employees or lodgers. In 1980, ‘Partner/roommate’ refers to a non-relative who lives with the householder and shares expenses; in 1990, this category is split into ‘Housemate or roommate’ and ‘Unmarried partner’ which is supposed to distinguish those with a "close personal relationship" with the householder.

Other non-relatives:

The group quarters distinction makes this category particularly unwieldy, so in order to simplify the detail codes we separated this category into Pre-1940 system and 1940-1990 system. In general, the Pre-1940 System does not make any distinctions between households and group quarters, but the 1940-1990 system separates households and group quarters. Any use of the detail codes across several census years will require particular attention to this category and possibly some recoding. The following groups represent most of the people classified as "Other non-relatives:"

Roomers/boarders/lodgers & foster children:

Before 1940 roomers, boarders, lodgers, and foster children are classified individually when possible. Beginning in 1940, they are all classified together while distinguishing between those in rooming houses (group quarters, ’12 93’) and those in households. In 1940 and 1950, however, boarders and lodgers in group quarters are in the ‘Other non-inmates 1940-1950’ (12 84) category with students and military.

Students, military, and members of religious orders:

The student (12 22) category in the Pre-1940 system generally include people enumerated in secondary boarding schools and some elementary and secondary students enumerated in orphanages and asylums. Since 1940, people in college dormitories and military installations are classified as group quarters members under ‘Military’ and ‘College dormitory,’ except in 1940 and 1950 when they are part of the category ‘Other non-inmates 1940-1950’ (12 84). The Pre-1940 system contains a category for members of religious institutions, which is predominantly Catholic nuns living in convents.

Employees:

 In the Pre-1940 system, we only retained the distinctions between the most common employee relationships. Most of these categories are domestic employees (servants, housekeepers, maids, cooks, nurses, and other probable domestics) who worked for the family. "Other employees" includes unspecified employees, farm workers, institutional employees, and other employees hired for business purposes. We recommend using the occupation variables (OCC and OCC1950) to determine the specific occupation of employees. In the 1940-1990 system the classification of employees is not consistent. All employees in households are classified "12 5-" except in 1990, when they are included in the ‘Other non-relatives’ (12 60). Group quarters employees are only identified in 1940 and 1950, and for the other years employees are part of the ‘Other non-inmates’ categories (12 70, 12 94, and 12 95).

Other non-relatives:

This classification in the early years (12 30) includes any unspecified non-relatives, and is rather consistent for these years. In the 1940-1990 system this category (12 60) is not as consistent; as mentioned above, in 1990 this includes employees in households, but for 1940, 1950, and 1980 employees are classified elsewhere. Also, the 1960 and 1970 censuses classified any non-relative other than lodgers or employees in the ‘Partner/friend’ category (11 10).

Other non-inmates:

There are four ‘Other non-inmate’ categories with subtly different definitions. 1990 has the broadest definition; ‘Other non-inmates 1990’ (12 70) includes people enumerated in military installations, college dormitories, rooming houses, and employees and heads of group quarters. In 1940 and 1950 people living in college dormitories, military installations and rooming houses are included in ‘Other non-inmates 1940-1950’ (12 84), but employees, heads, and relatives of staff of group quarters are classified elsewhere. 1960 and 1970 have the narrowest definition, classifying military installation, college dormitory, and rooming house residents and non-inmates in institutions in separate categories, leaving only employees in ‘Other non-inmates 1960-1970’ (12 95). 1980 has a definition similar to 1960/70, but ‘Other non-inmates 1980’ (12 94) includes non-inmates in institutions, in addition to employees.

Institutional inmates:

In IPUMS-95, this category maintained distinctions between different institutions, but for the sake of simplicity, we removed that information in IPUMS-98 because it is not consistently reported in each census year and the information is contained in GQTYPE.

Census Questions:
1880   1900   1910   1920   1940   1950   1960   1970   1980   1990

Enumerator Instructions:
1880   1900   1910   1920   1940   1950   1960   1970   1980   1990