For each reporting unit, the person who owns or rents the dwelling unit is usually defined as the reference person. For student reporting units, the student is defined as the reporting unit. For the reference person, the value of RELATE is "Self." For all others, the relationship is indicated by codes, such as "husband/spouse," "wife/spouse," "son," etc.

If the relationship of an individual to the reference person was not ascertained during the Round specific interview, relationships between other RU members were used, where possible, to assign a relationship to the reference person. If two individuals' relationship indicated that they were spouses, but both had a marital status of "single," they were assigned a relationship of non-marital partners.