Shapefiles and data at the census tract, county, state, and other geographic levels going back to 1790 for counties, and 1910 for tracts. Also includes some data for downloading.

These are slides from the 4 day "Understanding Federal Statistics" workshop held in May 2008. They are a good starting point for learning about Federal Data Sources.

Same sex and unmarried partner household data are collected for those households where the householder and his or her partner are not married, but are living in a close personal relationship. An unmarried partner can be of the same sex or opposite sex of the householder.

An unmarried partner, in an unmarried partner household, is an adult who is unrelated to the householder, but shares living quarters and has a close personal relationship with the householder. This relationship is based on the self-identification of respondents.

Here are some sources for your use:

• The American FactFinder contains two sources:
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  • American Community Survey   Table B11009, shows "Unmarried Partner Households by Sex of Partner."
  • Census 2000, Summary File (SF) 1 Table PCT14, "Unmarried Partner Households by Sex of Partner" is available for the nation, state, metropolitan statistical area, city/place, county, and various other geographies.
  • Additionally, same-sex unmarried partner household data were collected in the 1990 Census. The Technical Note on Same-Sex Unmarried Partner Data From the 1990 and 2000 Censuses provides guidance on comparing these data.
• The Census 2000 special reports include:
  • Married-Couple and Unmarried Partner Households: 2000 and
  • Population and Housing Table, PHC-T-19, Hispanic Origin and Race of Coupled Households provides race and gender for unmarried partner households for the U.S.
• The Census Bureau also collects data for same sex and unmarried partner households in ongoing survey programs, but does not regularly produce tabulations on this topic. For more information and special studies on the subjects of same gender couples and unmarried partner households based on the Census Bureau's survey programs, visit the Population Division Working Papers:
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  • No. 34, Unbinding the Ties: Edit Effects of Marital Status on Same Gender Couples.
  • No. 35, Racial-Ethnic and Gender Differences in Returns to Cohabitation and Marriage: Evidence for the Current Population Survey.
  • No. 36, How Does POSSLQ Measure Up? Historical Estimates of Cohabitation.

From page 247-248

TECHNICAL NOTE ON SAME-SEX UNMARRIED PARTNER DATA FROM THE 1990 AND 2000 CENSUSES

...In 1990, the edit and allocation procedures did not allow same-sex “spouse” combinations to occur, thus resulting in the allocation of one of these two items in order to achieve editing consistency among the responses.

...Processing steps were changed for Census 2000 for households that contained same-sex “spouses.” If the person with the “spouse” category was the same sex as the householder and if neither person had their sex previously allocated, a relationship response of “spouse” was allocated as an “unmarried partner” response.

...Two principal factors affected our decision to take this approach for Census 2000.

1.      Marriage Act (H.R. 3396) passed by the 104th Congress. This act instructs all federal agencies only to recognize opposite-sex marriages for the purposes of enacting any agency programs. In order for Census Bureau data to be consistent with this act and the data requirements of other federal agencies, same-sex spouse responses were invalidated. The legislation defines marriage and spouse as follows:

 “In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, or of any ruling, regulation or interpretation of the various administrative bureaus and agencies of the United States, the word ’marriage’ means only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife, and the word ’spouse’ refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or wife.” In order for the Census Bureau to be consistent with this act and the data requirements of other federal agencies, same-sex “spouse” responses were invalidated.

2.      The second factor took into consideration that couples in long term same-sex relationships may consider themselves as “married partners” and thus respond as such on the census form.  In addition, at the time of writing the editing program for Census 2000, there were several challenges in the courts concerning the legality of same-sex marriages. Clearly, we could not ignore the fact that same-sex spouse responses were going to be recorded during Census 2000. In light of these social and legal aspects and the lack of a key variable in the statistical allocation routine (marital status) the assignment of same-sex “married” couples to the same-sex “unmarried partner” category was the procedure chosen for the editing process. We were adverse to a randomized allocation of these responses after people had clearly marked a close relationship preference on the census form.

As a result of these changes in the processing routine, estimates of same-sex unmarried partners are not comparable between the 1990 and 2000 census.