---
title: "A Difficult Question: How Many Same-Sex Married Couples?"
description: "This posting links to an article about the Census Bureau's difficulty in getting an accurate count of same-sex married couples. As more states legalize gay marriage, producing a good number becomes increasingly important."
date: "2014-05-13"
authors:
  - name: "D’Vera Cohn"
    job_title: "Former Senior Writer/Editor"
    link: "https://www.pewresearch.org/staff/dvera-cohn/"
url: "https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2014/05/13/a-difficult-question-how-many-same-sex-married-couples/"
---

# A Difficult Question: How Many Same-Sex Married Couples?

The Census Bureau, acknowledging serious problems with its counts of same-sex married couples, is trying new questions on its surveys in an attempt to produce more accurate data. The bureau says its counts of this group are artificially high, mainly because of a seemingly simple error on some census questionnaires. [Read more at FactTank](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2014/05/13/census-struggles-to-reach-an-accurate-number-on-gay-marriages/).