Since the 1990s, more than half of India’s households were recorded as nuclear, with joint families making up 16% of all households, leaving about a third of India’s households that are neither `nuclear’ nor `joint’.
As per Census 2011, there is a whole range of household types between nuclear & joint.
First & biggest being the `supplemented nuclear’ household accounting 16%. `Supplemented nuclear’ households are households where an unmarried relative a younger brother of the husband or wife, or maybe an elderly aunt stays with the family.
Another is the `broken extended’ household which is just 4%. `Broken extended’ households are defined as those with a head of the household without a spouse, & some relatives in residence, not more than one of whom is married.
This household has another peculiarity with female heading such types of households with an increase by seven times in the past decade indicating an increase in life expectancy of women & another being where people leave their homes to migrate & work elsewhere, leading to a spurt in these in-between types of households that are neither joint nor nuclear.
A 35% increase in single-person households is observed over the decade with higher growth rate in urban areas, presumably due to youngsters migrating to cities for education or jobs & setting up home there.
