HOUSEHOLDS

In most countries, the household has become recognised as the unit of logical analysis for such themes as access to housing, housing density, situations of extreme poverty, vulnerable groups etc. The household is also a unit of consumption and, in many cases, a unit of production. In the IIRGPH any group of people who were living in the same house and sharing the expenses of the house was regarded as a household regardless of kinship links. In  Mozambique 3,634,600 households were counted, 935,700 of them, or 25.7%, in the urban areas and 2,698,900, or 74.3% , in the rural areas.

Table 6.1 shows the average number of peoples in the households, by area of residence and large age groups. The average total number of persons per household is 4.1; for urban areas this figure is 4.6 and for rural areas it is 4.0. This measure was divided into two parts: the average number of children (minors less than 15 years old) per household, and the average number of adults (aged 15 and above) per household. The first figure is an approximate indicator of the fertility of the household: but the second is more an indicator of the complexity of the composition of households, that is, of the tendency of the adults to expand households instead of setting up their own ones. The average number of minors per household is 1.8 and of adults 2.3. In urban areas, the respective figures are 2.0 and 2.6 persons and in rural areas 1.8 and 2.2 persons. Even though fertility is higher in the rural areas, the number of children per household is a little less than in the urban ones. This seems to be the result of the high mortality in childhood prevalent in the rural sectors (see Sections 2 and 3). A second explanation may be the high frequency of early marriage in the rural areas (see Section 5). The average number of adults per household observed in the rural sector is also smaller than in urban areas. In the latter, it is more expensive than in the rural sector for persons or families to establish or maintain independent households. This would imply, in turn, a greater number of people living with their parents or other elder relatives in urban areas than in rural ones, where the formation or maintenance of households would be economically more viable and functional. In the rural sector, the farm is the basis for agricultural production and for the social organisation of work, which presupposes a dispersal of labour. In urban areas, on the other hand, a greater concentration of labour is needed.

Table 6.2 shows the percentage distribution of households by area of residence, and by type. The nuclear household, formed by a couple, with or without children, is the most frequent form of household arrangement in most of societies. In