The Census Bureau is proposing that it eliminate the following questions from its annual survey of 3.5 million households:
- In the past 12 months, did you get married?
- In the past 12 months, did you become widowed?
- In the past 12 months, did you get divorced?
- How many times have you been married?
- In what year did you last get married?
These annual questions are important to researchers who use this comprehensive data to compare the differences between married and unmarried households. If this data collection is discontinued, it will be much more difficult to measure these differences.
Defenders of traditional marriage are confident that same-sex marriage results will not show the same benefits to families as traditional marriage. The collection of these statistics would make it easier to make this comparison over the years.
Not collecting this information only supports the position of those who do not think marriage is important and want to eliminate an important tool that is used to show why traditional marriage is the best environment for raising children.
You can voice your opinion regarding whether to keep these questions in by sending an email to: jjessup@doc.gov. The deadline is December 30, 2015.
