Using Names to Improve Measurement of Same-Sex Married Couples in the American Community Survey

Daphne A. Lofquist, U.S. Census Bureau

The U.S. Census Bureau conducts ongoing research to improve measurement of all household relationships, especially for same-sex married couples. Since they are a relatively small population among all households, same-sex married couple households are difficult to estimate accurately. Issues discovered with the 2010 Census led to the development of “preferred estimates” of same-sex couples. Using the same-sex married couple flag and the names index, this poster extends prior research by using data from the 2013 American Community Survey to identify those couples who likely are same-sex married couples compared to those who are most likely opposite-sex couples who mismarked the sex item for at least one of the spouses. These results will help further the Census Bureau’s research on same-sex married couples and achieve our goal of producing high-quality estimates.