Marital status in the census: impact of the redesign of the 2015 questionnaire

Legal marital status, which corresponds to one of the following four modalities: married, divorced, widowed, and single, is built around marriage. It therefore takes little account of other forms of unions, such as the PACS or common-law unions.

In 2015, within the census, the question on legal marital status has been therefore replaced by "are you married, linked by a civil solidarity pact (PACS), in a common-law relation-ship, widowed, divorced or single?". Despite the ambiguity of this question (one can be single or divorced and in a common-law relationship, etc.), the non-answer to this question has not increased and 96% of the answers of adults are still unique and unambiguous. This new question also makes it possible to better know the legal ties that unite the couples. It also improves the quality of the measurement of married cohabiting couples. Until now, 1% of them were in fact linked by a PACS and could not declare themselves as such. On the other hand, it no longer allows legal marital status to be monitored. However, estimates are possible. A method is proposed to continue to distribute the population according to legal marital status, at the price however of a slight break in series: it mobilizes the employment survey.

In the household surveys and in the employment survey, the question on legal marital status is simply supplemented by a question about the existence of a PACS. This makes it possible to follow the legal marital status of the people and the link with their conjugal situation. This is no longer possible from the census survey.