Concept: Unattached Individuals

Introduction

Part of the Family Structure group of Concepts, Unattached Individuals discusses the definition and data methodology around specification of Unattached Individuals and how they are represented in MCHP data.

Definition and additional background information

As the name suggests, an Unattached Individual is a person living either alone or with others to whom he/she/them is unrelated, such as roommates or a lodger. The term typically applies to adults who are eligible to be in a marital union but remain alone, to have children but do not have, and who do not live with their parents. Unattached individuals typically file taxes as a single-dweller household.

Specifically, an Unattached Individual:


• Is not the parent of any dependent child
  
• Is not the Legal or Common-law spouse of another person
  
• Is not currently registered as the dependent of one or more parents

The designation of Unattached Individual may change over time. Marriage or the birth of a child form attachments that change the status of the person from Unattached to a member of a two-person household or Single-Parent Household.

Although they may be alike in terms of their family structure, Unattached Individuals may differ substantially in the mechanisms of their entry into that status.

Some examples of pathways to Unattached Individual:


• Single person immigrating to Manitoba from another province or outside Canada
  
• Divorce of a couple with no children
  
• Death of a child in a single-parent household
  
• Death of a spouse in a couple with no children

Methods

An Unattached Individual can be identified in the following way:


1. Run the %RegRelation() SAS® macro to find all Child, Parent, Spouse and Sibling relationships. This is an ‘all time’ search that finds relationships at any time since 1970 up to the most recent Registry file.
   
2. To find Unattached Individuals at a given point in time, select those individuals who are:
   
   1. Age 18 years or older
      
   2. Not currently Married or in a Common-Law Union
      
   3. Not currently the parent of a child alive and covered in Manitoba
3. Since cohabitation, rather than kinship, is the salient feature of the Unattached Individual, a further refinement of the definition is to compare the postal code of the individual with all living parents and siblings. Only those with postal codes differing from other family members are counted as Unattached Individuals.

Cautions / Limitations

Registry


• Postal code is a crude approximation of residential address, so individuals living in the same postal code but in a different household from parents and siblings will not be designated Unattached Individuals.
  
• Individuals who are Married or in Common-Law Unions unreported to Manitoba Health may be incorrectly designated as Unattached Individuals.