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Household Composition Timeline

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FIELD METHODS
10.1177/1525822X03252383
McIlvaine-Newsad et al. / HOUSEHOLD COMPOSITION TIMELINE ARTICLE

Household Composition Timeline

HEATHER MCILVAINE-NEWSAD
Western Illinois University
AMY SULLIVAN
MICHAEL DOUGHERTY
University of Florida

Those who conduct applied field research cannot ignore the importance of the
household as a unit of analysis. Academics and practitioners alike have written a
great deal about the prominence of households around the world and throughout
history. One of the difficulties often encountered with using the household as a unit of
analysis is how best to compare households for the purpose of making relevant sug-
gestions for how they might best reach their goals. This article introduces a tool to
document how households are affected by changes in variables such as composition,
economics, politics, and the natural environment. The article provides a step-by-step
methodology for documenting household composition and other changes a house-
hold may experience over time. The methodology is then applied to a case study in
which the benefits and drawbacks of this approach are discussed.

Keywords: participatory research; agriculture; gender; household composition;

methodology; farming systems

Those of us who conduct field research cannot ignore the importance of the
household unit. This unit of analysis is central both to the people we work
with and the theoretical development of the discipline(s) we practice
(Barnard and Good 1984). Because of the prominence of households cross-
culturally and through time, we must be able to draw comparisons if we wish
to comment on how households are affected by changes in variables such as
composition, economics, politics, and the natural environment. To do this
effectively, we must establish a set of rules granting us the flexibility to
record and analyze households across cultures.
The purpose of this article is to explain a method developed primarily for
applied researchers to record and track household structural changes over
time. More specifically, we are interested in these changes and how subse-
quent modifications in consumption requirements and resource availability
affect livelihood strategies in agricultural household units in rural communi-
ties in developing countries.
Field Methods, Vol. 15, No. 3, August 2003 305–317
DOI: 10.1177/1525822X03252383
© 2003 Sage Publications
305
306 FIELD METHODS

THE HISTORY OF KINSHIP CHARTS

The study of kinship and household composition has long fascinated

anthropologists. The kinship studies by Maine (1861), McLennon (1865),
and Morgan (1871) established the cornerstone for what has become an
exhaustive body of literature on kinship and household composition (e.g.,
Fortes and Evans-Pritchard 1940; Hammel 1961; Fox 1967; Netting, Wilk,
and Arnold 1984). The preoccupation of early anthropologists with kinship
grew out of an interest in understanding the social organization of so-called
primitive societies. These anthropologists were interested not only in house-
holds, marriage, and family but also in the creation of social, economic, and
political ties through reproduction and descent (Strathern 1994:270). Today,
in many non-Western societies, kinship remains an important component
that influences production systems, rules and patterns of exchange, access to
resources, and political organization.
Beginning with Malinowski (1913), anthropologists began to investigate
other cultures from an emic or insider’s perspective. Kinship studies with
culturally constructed kin relations—not necessarily biologically based—
offered anthropologists a reliable tool for investigating the social organiza-
tion of “primitive” cultures. Since its inception in the early 1900s, the study
of kinship has undergone radical changes in its theoretical orientation.
Among the most important of these transformations has been the attention
given to process over structure, to epistemic science over objective science,
and to the whole rather than the part (Capra, Steindl-Rast, and Matus 1991).
The focus on the process of the reproduction of notable structures in the late
1950s and 1960s led to the notion of the development cycle of domestic
groups (Goody 1958). This new focal point allowed for a better understand-
ing of the dynamic processes of domestic or family units. The differing roles
and responsibilities of men and women within the household became more
prominent, and women were credited with responsibilities previously over-
looked by researchers and field practitioners. This new focus on the domestic
or household domain as a unit of analysis led to more precise definitions of
the terms family and household. As pointed out by Henrietta Moore (1988),
“The family and household are two terms which are particularly difficult to
separate clearly” (p. 54).
Nowadays, most anthropologists continue to interchange the terms family
and household, although they often mark a conceptual distinction between
family as the kinship group and household as a group of people who contrib-
ute to the survival of a domestic unit. For our own research, we have defined
the household as a residential unit, where the members share domestic func-
 McIlvaine-Newsad et al. / HOUSEHOLD COMPOSITION TIMELINE 307

tions and activities—a group of people who “eat out of the same pot” or who
“share the same bowl” (Brydon and Chant 1989). Individuals who are not
physically present but contribute to or draw from the household are also con-
sidered members.
In the 1960s and 1970s, scholars published many articles on various ways
of recording and analyzing household structural change over time (Hammel
1961; Handwerker 1973, 1977; Hammel and Laslett 1974; Brown 1977), but
in the past two decades, the interest in kinship and household studies has
waned. Although academic interest has declined, the core methodology
developed during the 1960s and 1970s is still relevant today. Kinship studies
have not disappeared; rather, researchers have shifted their focus from kin-
ship as a descriptive tool to kinship as an analytical tool. Meillassoux (1981)
used kinship as an analytical tool explaining political economies, while Col-
lier and Rosaldo (1981), Ortner and Whitehead (1981), and Kabeer (1994)
were primarily interested in how gender and gender relations within house-
holds were related to a larger picture of gender inequality.
Kinship charts show the relationships between individuals within large
kinship groups, beyond the household level. However, traditional kinship
charts were not conceptualized to present the time frame of the household
depicted. Hammel and Laslett (1974:106, fig. 31) provide an example of the
attempts that have been made to represent time by writing in the dates of rele-
vant events next to the specific elements on the kinship charts. In Hammel’s
1972 article, “The Zadruga as Process,” he manipulates traditional kinship
charts to map the seventy different types of work groups that he identified
from a Serbian census. In his own words, Hammel admitted, “The procedure
for reconstruction is, of course, only a crude one” (1972:352). While both
these examples offer useful manipulations of traditional kinship charts, nei-
ther uses a timeline representing the entire life cycle of the household.
As applied researchers, we were interested in examining the entire life
cycle of a household unit for the purpose of identifying labor and consump-
tion patterns. The main goal of Hammel and Laslett’s (1974) work was not
the same. Thus, while the work of other scholars has contributed much to kin-
ship studies, we have been unable to find any methodology that incorporates
the entire time frame of a household into kinship charts, allowing researchers
and others to easily identify changes in household composition over time.
The technique we propose uses a practical approach of incorporating time
into kinship charts. As such, this article continues to build on the kinship and
household composition literature by providing researchers and field practi-
tioners with a simple model for recording and analyzing household
compositional change over time.
308 FIELD METHODS

RATIONALE FOR HOUSEHOLD

COMPOSITIONAL TIMELINES

Traditional kinship charts, because they do not incorporate time, fail to

adequately represent the dynamic nature of household composition. Whereas
they provide us with a snapshot of household composition at a given period,
they do not give us the ability to view longitudinal changes in household
composition. Our rationale for developing household composition timelines
(HHCT) is somewhat different.
The HHCT technique described here illustrates some of the conditions
that influence livelihood strategies attempted by households. Since house-
hold composition is an important factor governing household behavior, we
need a method to map changes in household composition over time. This
allows us to better understand the challenges facing households at different
stages in their life cycle.
In addition to representing the membership of the household at any given
time, including attributes such as age, gender, and kinship, HHCT includes a
longitudinal component. This allows researchers to document the path a
household has taken to its current state. HHCT rearranges the kin chart to add
information as to when each member enters and leaves the household.
Although this information may be recorded by annotating traditional kinship
charts, it becomes visually cluttered and difficult to interpret. HHCT uses a
timeline to more intuitively represent membership changes over time.

WHY IS HOUSEHOLD COMPOSITION CRITICAL?

Several decades ago, A. V. Chayanov (1966) illustrated the importance of

household composition in the production decisions of agricultural house-
holds. His work clearly shows how household composition affects household
decision making. His work with Russian peasants demonstrated how house-
hold decisions are influenced by resources availability, activities, and their
own objectives (see Figure 1).
Since labor is one of the most important resources for rural households,
documenting compositional changes over time is critical in understanding
labor availability. For many subsistence households, the primary objective is
the reproduction of the unit. To meet this objective, the household must at
least meet its subsistence requirement, which is determined by the cultural
norms governing acceptable consumption levels, given the age and sex of
each household member. The production activities undertaken by the house-
 McIlvaine-Newsad et al. / HOUSEHOLD COMPOSITION TIMELINE 309

FIGURE 1
Chayanov’s (1966) Basic Framework of Household Production

Household Productive Household

Resources Are applied to ... Activities To achieve ... Objectives

natural resources crops nutritional requirements

physical capital livestock non-food requirements
human capital crafts social obligations
social capital extraction ...
... buying/selling
off farm employment
...

hold are determined by the objectives of the household and the resources
available.
As applied researchers, we are interested in understanding household pro-
duction decisions. These decisions can be analyzed only by studying the
household livelihood process. As illustrated above, household composition
is critical in explaining why households do what they do. We developed this
technique to provide other researchers and practitioners with a method that
allows them to easily document household composition changes over time.

RULES FOR HOUSEHOLD COMPOSITION TIMELINES

In this section, we will construct an HHCT and explain the rules used to
build one. Many of the rules for building HHCTs have been borrowed from
traditional kinship charts. Our original intent was to simply modify tradi-
tional kinship charts by adding a timeline. We made every effort to maintain
the standards used in constructing kinship charts. Many kinship chart rules
had to be modified to reflect the arrival and departure of household members.
Figure 2 is an HHCT representing a hypothetical household.
The rules listed below were used to construct the HHCT in Figure 2.

1. A timeline representing the time period of interest is drawn across the top of
the diagram.
2. Each person is represented by a symbol located beneath the date he or she
enters the household.
3. Males are represented by triangles; circles represent females.
4. People not born into the household must have their age designated inside their
symbol.
310 FIELD METHODS

FIGURE 2
Hypothetical Household Composition Timeline

1980 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 1990

2323

17

NOTE: The hypothetical household composition timelines were originally drawn by hand and
later recreated in Microsoft Office PowerPoint.

5. Each person occupies a single line; only one person per line.
6. Household head or ego is designated by a shaded symbol.
7. Each person has a dotted lifeline drawn from the right side of their symbol to
indicate continuance in the hypothetical household up to the date that they
exit the household.
8. A letter is used to signify reason for departure (e.g., D for death or M for
migration).
9. Descendants are always listed below those from whom they have descended.
If deemed necessary by the researcher, a dashed line could be used to denote
the particular type of relationship that the new member of the household has
to the main caregiver (e.g., adopted son to adopted mother).
10. Kinship lines are drawn from the bottom of the symbol.
11. Each mother has an offspring line, connecting the mother to her children. If
the researcher deems it necessary to represent the kinship from the father to
children (as may be the case in male adoption of a sister’s child), the chart may
be modified to reflect this reality.
12. Marriage or some type of adult union is represented by a double solid line (=).

The example presented here implements the basic rules listed above in
constructing an HHCT for a hypothetical household. This timeline begins
with household formation in 1980 and continues until 1990, as indicated by
Rule 1. In accordance with Rule 3, the male is represented by a triangle and
the female by a circle. Rule 4 states that individuals not born into the house-
 McIlvaine-Newsad et al. / HOUSEHOLD COMPOSITION TIMELINE 311

hold have their age when entering the household placed inside the symbol. In
Figure 2, the female was not born into the household and therefore her age is
placed inside her symbol. Each person occupies a single line as required by
Rule 5. The symbol representing the male is shaded to indicate that he is the
head or ego of the HHCT (Rule 6). A dotted line is drawn across the timeline
for each individual denoting his or her presence in the household (Rule 7).
Notice that the head of household is present from 1980 through 1990. The
male head and female formed a household in 1980, either by formal marriage
or some other form of adult union. A double solid line is used to represent this
adult union as indicated by Rule 12. The HHCT indicates that three children
have been born to the head of household and the female. The first child, a
male (triangle), was born in 1983. The second child, a female (circle), was
born in 1985, and the third child, a male (triangle), was born in 1987.
And note that the symbol for each child is located beneath the date they
enter the household (Rule 2). Since these children have been born into the
household, no age is indicated inside their symbol (Rule 4). Their ages can be
calculated at any given point by referring to the timeline. Each of these chil-
dren is connected to their biological mother by a solid line (Rule 11). This
line is drawn from the bottom of the biological mother to the top of each child
(Rule 10). Since the children are descended from the household head and the
adult female, the children are placed below their parents (Rule 9). Notice fur-
ther that the youngest child, male, born in 1987, died in 1989. This is signified
by the D placed beneath 1989 and terminates the dotted lifeline for that indi-
vidual (Rule 8). Codes such as D for deceased can be created as needed to
indicate reasons for departure from the household.
This simple hypothetical example illustrates the construction of a basic
HHCT. The flexibility of this technique will be demonstrated in the follow-
ing section through the use of a much more complex household taken from
actual data.

METHOD

The data used in the following example were collected in 1998 by Amy
Sullivan in Senegal. She used direct observation and informal interviews to
gather information about changes in household composition over time. Key
data collected include culturally acceptable behavior regarding marriage,
social relationships, and religious practices.
Households in this area are traditionally structured around the family
patriarch. This is a polygamous society in which multiple wives are present,
usually within the same family compound. Data collected included the age,
312 FIELD METHODS

gender, and relationships of all members who contributed to or consumed

from the unit. These data included (1) the age of the head of household when
he married his first wife; (2) the ages of any subsequent wives upon their
entry into the household; (3) the frequency, spacing, and entry points of all
children; (4) instances (gender and age) of infant mortality; (5) age at which
daughters are married “out of the household” or (6) at which sons leave home
for school or military, (7) to establish their own family, or (8) to work off-
farm. These data were compiled to create household timelines.
Sullivan used HHCT to illustrate trends in household resource consump-
tion (number, age, gender of each mouth to feed) and household resource
(labor, remittances) availability. These conditions were ultimately converted
to data from which linear programming models were constructed. All house-
hold activities were quantified to produce a model of the household liveli-
hood system. (Livelihood systems refers to the entire range of activities avail-
able to a household.) The model was then operationalized to simulate
livelihood strategies at different points in the life cycle of the household. The
results were analyzed by posing “What if?” questions, concerning possible
adoption of improved agricultural technologies, to the model. Quite simply,
household composition—as the main determinant of household labor avail-
ability and consumption requirements—was critical to the household’s abil-
ity to adopt new technologies.
Households in two subsistence-farming communities were examined to
create household timelines. The dynamic nature of households is illustrated
by these timelines that were used to create modified Chayanovian consumer-
to-producer ratios. Each household timeline was used to create an age matrix,
reflecting the age of each member of the household at any point in time since
household inception. A consumer-to-producer ratio, based on individual
energy requirements in kilocalories, aggregated to the household level, was
derived from this matrix and graphed for each household. In other words,
rather than graphing the ratio of consumers to producers in terms of either/or,
male/female, or adult/child, thereby losing variation due to gender, age, and
physical activity level, this modification accounts for that variation within
the household. As such, it is more indicative of existing conditions.

CASE STUDY

Both households in this case study belong to communities of subsistence

farmers. In addition to crop production activities, various domestic tasks con-
sume the limited resources of these households. Men produce upland cereal
grain and pulse crops, while women typically focus on rice, specialty crops,
 McIlvaine-Newsad et al. / HOUSEHOLD COMPOSITION TIMELINE 313

and domestic activities within the household. The limited use of improved
technologies and a distinct gendered division of labor characterizes their sub-
sistence activities.
Household A was formed in 1973 when the male head took his wife. As
indicated by the HHCT, he was twenty-four years old and his wife was seven-
teen at the time of the union. Their first child, a son, was born in 1974, fol-
lowed by two more sons born in 1977 and 1979, respectively. The couple’s
first daughter was born in 1983, followed by two more girls in 1986 and 1990.
As indicated, the oldest son left home for the university in 1995, at age
twenty, and returned to the village in 1998 (see Figure 3).
Household B was formed in 1954 when the male head took his first wife.
Their first child, a son, was born the following year. In 1957, the head took his
second wife, who bore him his second and third child in 1959 and 1961,
respectively. His fourth child, a daughter by his first wife, was born in 1962.
By 1980, he had six more children, for a total of ten—six sons and four
daughters. His sons were twenty-four, eighteen, fifteen, ten, seven, and two
years old at that time. By this point, his two oldest daughters had left his
household as the result of their own marriages. Two children in the household
in 1980 were under five years old.
In 1980, the male head took a third wife, who bore him a child the follow-
ing year. In 1984, his second-oldest son left the village and joined the mili-
tary. Two years later, an adult nephew moved into the village and joined his
uncle’s household. The next child of the male head was born to the third wife
in 1987, the year before his third son left the village for paid employment (see
Figure 4).
By 1990, when the fourth son left the village to seek employment, the
hearth-hold (those physically present) consisted of the head; his three wives;
an eighteen-year-old son; a fifteen-year-old daughter; a twelve-year-old son;
daughters age ten, eight, and three; his nephew; and his nephew’s wife. At
this time, he was receiving remittances from two of his four sons who had
moved out of the village.
By drawing a vertical line down the HHCT from 2000, we see that in addi-
tion to the male head of household and his three wives, the hearth-hold con-
sisted of a twenty-six-year-old son, his wife, and infant; a twenty-year-old
son; two daughters age twelve and six, a three-year-old son; and his nephew’s
family with four children.
Once constructed, an HHCT can be used as a guide to query household
decision makers as to strategies used during periods of high stress (limited
female or male labor, many children, older households) or during times of
relatively high labor availability. Households in developing countries often
manipulate household composition itself as a strategy. For example, the male
314 FIELD METHODS

FIGURE 3
Household Composition Timeline A

1970 ‘75 ‘80 ‘85 ‘90 ‘95 2000

17

university

Legend

Male Head of Household

Male non-head of Household

Female

Absent from village

D Deceased

Is married to

Still living

Children of

head of household in household B had ample male labor for agricultural

activities and was able to send his sons in search of outside employment from
which he still collects remittances. Also in household B, the acquisition of a
third wife added female labor to the household, which freed the first two
wives for more agricultural production activities.

FEASIBILITY: LIMITATIONS AND ADVANTAGES

The HHCTs presented here are not a replacement for traditional kinship
charts. Kinship charts concisely describe kin relationships between individu-
 McIlvaine-Newsad et al. / HOUSEHOLD COMPOSITION TIMELINE 315

FIGURE 4
Household Composition Timeline B

1950 ‘55 ‘60 ’65 ‘70 ‘75 ‘80 ‘85 ‘90 ‘95 2000

M
D
Taxi driver
Works in family bar

M
Legend

Male Head of Household

Male non-head of Household D

Female
Absent from village

D Deceased
M Leaves HH for H usband

Is married to

Still living

Children of

als within large kinship groups beyond the household level. HHCTs, as we
have structured them, focus solely on the kin relationships within the house-
hold unit over time. Therefore, HHCTs are not a very effective tool for illus-
trating lineage, descent, and other kinship ties over time beyond the house-
hold. Although the concept of placing kinship charts on a timeline for groups
beyond the household is feasible, showing these types of kinship changes
beyond the household over time was not our purpose. Kinship charts are still
more effective at showing the complex, but static, relationships among multi-
ple households.
HHCTs show dynamic changes in household composition over time.
Since HHCTs deal with time explicitly, they show age cohort relationships
within the household unit more clearly than do traditional kinship charts.
Cohorts of same-age individuals are easily identifiable using HHCTs. This is
not possible with traditional kinship charts.
316 FIELD METHODS

Initially, HHCTs appear to be potentially useful as a participatory rural

appraisal tool. However, the rules for constructing HHCTs are likely to be
too cumbersome to use efficiently in small-group activities. Instead, HHCTs
are best used as an organizational tool for researchers and field practitioners.
HHCTs concisely organize data on complex kin relationships and the timing
of changes in household composition. We have found this technique to be
helpful for identifying when households are more likely to adopt new tech-
nologies based on factors driven by household composition.
This technique can be used cross-culturally, with a wide variety of house-
hold types. It uses an inductive approach based on household members’
descriptions of their relationships to each other. HHCTs have been used in
three different cultures and are sufficiently flexible to accommodate all
household types encountered. As demonstrated in the case study above, the
notation’s flexibility allows incorporation of broader scale events such as
war and economic opportunity for regional migration.

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HEATHER MCILVAINE-NEWSAD is an assistant professor of anthropology and a

research associate with the Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs at Western Illinois Univer-
sity in Macomb. She has conducted participatory research with a gender emphasis in the
Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Germany, and the United States. Her current research
focuses on the role of community-supported agriculture farms in the United States and
Germany and the state of rural health care in Illinois. Her recent publications include
“Ojalá que Llueva Algo en el Campo: Cultural Influences of Development” (Interna-
tional Journal of Agricultural Resources, Governance and Ecology, forthcoming) and
“Feminism and Anti-racism in Anthropology” (with Paige Allison, Voices, 2000).

AMY SULLIVAN is pursuing a Ph.D. in interdisciplinary ecology in the College of Natu-

ral Resources and Environment at the University of Florida. Her research interests
include participatory needs assessment in small-farm livelihood systems, extension pro-
gram design and delivery, and gender. Recent publications include “Gender, Household
Composition, and Adoption of Soil Fertility Technologies: A Study of Women Rice
Farmers in Southern Senegal” (African Studies Quarterly, 2002).

MICHAEL DOUGHERTY is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Geography at the

University of Florida. His current research interest includes developing statistical meth-
ods for generating topologies of rural household livelihood strategies. A recent publica-
tion of his is “Gendered Scripts and Declining Soil Fertility in Southern Ethiopia” (Afri-
can Studies Quarterly, 2002 [online]).

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