Colombia: 1973, 1985, 1993
Kenya: 1989, 1999
Mexico: 1970, 1990, 2000
United States: 1960, 1970, 1980, 1990
Vietnam: 1989

All households.

NUMUNREL indicates the number of persons in the household who are unrelated to the head.

This variable is fully comparable across all samples for which it is available.

The main purpose of NUMUNREL is to enable researchers to impose a consistent threshold for defining group quarters status. Group quarters are only unevenly identified and are often ill-defined in the various samples. With NUMUNREL users can define all households with more than a chosen number of unrelated persons as group quarters.

The number of unrelated persons are built into the definition of group quarters in the United States samples. For the period 1940-1970 group quarters are units with five or more individuals unrelated to the household head. In the other years, before 1940 and after 1970, units with 10 or more persons unrelated to the head are considered group quarters.

See also GQ (Group quarters status).

NUMUNREL is not available for the individual-level samples that do not include entire households. It is also not available for Vietnam 1999, which did not distinguish between "other relatives" and unrelated persons.