Non-marital cohabitation in the census questionnaires worldwide

If today Hajnal would have had to use proportions single from census data to characterize marriage regimes of countries in terms of marriage timing and intensity, he would be faced with the widespread phenomenon of non-marital cohabitation which is increasingly dissociating relationship status from legal marital status. The main objective of the paper is therefore to document how historically and currently censuses have dealt with the issue of cohabitation. To do so, we have exhaustively analyzed of 900+ census questionnaires, representing about 200 countries, covering most of the world's population from 1970 to 2010. The inventory showed that direct ways in which cohabitation is captured include using the question on marital status (e.g. common-law marriage), a separate question on consensual unions (if available) and on the relationship to the head of household (e.g. spouse). Indirect way include the presence, or existence, of own children (mainly asked to women). As the spread of cohabitation has increased the proportion single in many countries, the census measure ‘legal marital status’ is losing its validity and practical use as an indicator of union status. While some censuses now capture current cohabitation, capturing the ‘ever in cohabitation’ is still a challenge.