Five marriage-related census questions have been saved from the chopping block, thanks to an outcry from some 1,300 family scholars and their allies.
But the U.S. Census Bureau is still not satisfied, and is thinking of rephrasing the marriage questions to be more “sensitive,” and not asking all of them every year.
The five questions are:
In the past 12 months did this person get married?
In the past 12 months did this person get widowed?
In the past 12 months did this person get divorced?
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How many times has this person been married?
In what year did this person last get married?
A new 30-day public comment period was opened Tuesday and will run to May 27 to to gather comment about these and other proposed changes.
The massive American Community Survey (ACS) is currently “the most reliable source for estimates for marriage, divorce, widowhood and remarriage” in the United States, said the National Council on Family Relations (NCFR), which fought to keep the questions.
“The loss of the ACS [marriage] questions would have had serious consequences for our understanding of how American families are changing,” said Paul R. Amato, Pennsylvania State University family sociology professor and president of the NCFR.
He urged people to comment on the rephrasing and timing of the questions.
The five questions ask people when they last married, how many times they have married, and whether their current marital status is married, widowed or divorced.
In March, the Census Bureau released a first-of-its-kind report — using ACS data — that found 125.5 million American adults have married at least once — and 32.8 million have married twice, and 8.6 million have married three or more times.
Such findings bolster discussions around why America has become such a “marriage-go-round” nation, and what it means for adults, children and society.
The Social Security Administration and Department of Health and Human Services said they also use data from the marriage questions for their programs, the Census Bureau noted in its April 28 submission and comment request in the Federal Register.
The five marriage questions were targeted for deletion as part as a review of the need and usefulness of the ACS’ 70-plus questions.
The survey is sent to 3.7 million homes a year and takes the average householder 40 minutes to fill out.
In its April 28 notice, the bureau said it was considering rephrasing the marriage questions “to reduce respondent concern, especially for those who may be sensitive to providing information.”
The bureau is also thinking about “asking a question every other year, every third year, or asking a question of a subset of respondents each year.
• Cheryl Wetzstein can be reached at cwetzstein@washingtontimes.com.
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