---
title: "Census Will Count Same-sex Spouses with Married Couples"
description: "This links to a FactTank posting about the Census Bureau's plans to categorize same-sex spouses as married couples, a change from its current practice of counting them as unmarried couples."
date: "2014-05-30"
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/2014/05/30/census-will-count-same-sex-spouses-with-married-couples/"
---

# Census Will Count Same-sex Spouses with Married Couples

The Census Bureau will include same-sex spouses with married couples when it releases 2013 American Community Survey data in September, rather than categorizing them as unmarried couples. The change is not expected to have a big impact on overall marriage trends, and the bureau has cautioned that same-sex spouse estimates are flawed. [Read more at FactTank.](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2014/05/29/census-says-it-will-count-same-sex-marriages-but-with-caveats/)