Except in Addis Ababa, Harer, Dire Dawa, and a few other urban centres, most homes in Ethiopia are made of wood and mud with thatched or tin roofs called a 'tukul', the same style also used in Eritrea, Sudan and other parts of eastern Africa. These tukul are often in a poor state of repair having cracked walls, leaking roofs and dirt floors mainly because they are passed from generation to generation without the resources for improvement. These homes normally have just two rooms, one for storage and the other for everything else. 43% of these homes use pit latrines for sanitation while 38% of households have no toilet facilities, practising open defecation and just 30% of Ethiopia's rural population has access to electricity although, for those who can afford them, solar lights are gaining in popularity. As of 2020, more than 62 million people live without basic access to safe drinking water in Ethiopia which is which is normally collected from a nearby well either by the mother or the children. In some areas in south-west Ethiopia, women and children have to make 3-5 round trips a day to collect dirty water in jerry cans with each trip lasting some three hours. Despite some progress towards its Millenium Goals targets, access to improved sanitation remains at just 28% nationwide, although that is a significant improvement from just 3% in 1990.

Roles are very traditional in Ethiopia with the men working their small farms of usually three acres or less (80% of the population relies upon agriculture) whilst women cook, clean and look after the children with older girls sweeping the home and helping to care for their younger siblings whilst boys tend to the livestock and looking after the land which has become increasingly challenging over recent years due to droughts, overgrazing and deforestation. Children in Ethiopia can legally marry at 18 years of age although this law is not enforced particularly in rural areas and, although the rate of child marriage has declined over the past decades, UNICEF still estimated that in 2017 40% of girls were married before the legal age. Polygamy in Ethiopia is no longer legal however around 5% of men still have more than one wife, mainly Muslims and pagans. Culture dictates that a girl or woman must be sexually 'pure' before marriage and, as such, in parts of Ethiopia, despite being prohibited in Ethiopia's criminal code since 2004, FGM/C is still seen as a pre-requisite for marriage with a prevalence of 65.2% among women aged 15-49 with UNICEF reporting in 2020 that 25 million girls have experienced FGM in Ethiopia.