PART 2 CENSUS TOPICS
12. DEMOGRAPHIC CHARACTERISTICS
This chapter reviews the practices in the 2010 census round regarding the demographic characteristics of persons (sex, age and marital status - including both legal and de facto marital status), and the characteristics relating to marriage and fertility of women. Some comparisons with the 2000 census round are also made21.
Age and sex (core topics)
Age and sex are the two census topics for which the recommended definitions are the most clear, since it is the basic prerequisite for any census - however conducted - to record these characteristics for each person.
With regard to age, the CES Recommendations required the collection of information on date of birth, which allows the data to be tabulated in two ways – by year of birth and/or by completed years of age. In the UN Principles and Recommendations two methods were presented for collecting information on age; the date of birth – recommended as the method that produces the most precise and unambiguous information and also provides a means of estimating age at different reference periods throughout a year - and a direct question on age at the person’s last birthday. The second method yields less accurate responses and was therefore recommended to be used only when people cannot provide a birth year.
Fifty-one countries replied to the survey with respect to age. Of these, 40 used the date of birth and derived the age at the time of the census; 11 countries derived the age from both date of birth and age.
All nine countries conducting a register-based census derived the age from the date of birth.
Among the countries conducting a traditional census, 24 countries used this method while 8 used a combination of both exact age and deriving the age from the date of birth.
No country reported that there had been any serious issue raised about the collection of data on sex (that is on males and females only) although both Canada and the UK commented on concern expressed by some user groups about the lack of transgender/transsexual categories.
Legal marital status (core topic)
The CES Recommendations included two distinct topics for marital status: legal (core topic) and de facto marital status (non-core topic).
Legal marital status is defined by the CESR (as paragraph 209) as: ”The (legal) conjugal status of each individual in relation to the marriage laws (or customs) of the country (that is, the de jure status).
Moreover CESR recommended (at paragraph 210) that: ”Information on the legal marital status of each person should be collected at least for persons aged 15 and over. However, since the minimum legal age (or the customary age) for marriage varies between countries and since the population may also include young persons who have been married in other countries with lower minimum ages, some countries may find it useful to collect the data for persons under 15 as well.”
21 The material in this chapter has been taken largely from a paper prepared by Howard Hogan (US Census Bureau) and presented at the Joint UNECE-Eurostat Work Session on Population and Housing Censuses, held in Geneva from 30 September to 3 October 2013 (http://www.unece.org/stats/documents/2013.10.census1.html)
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The following classification of the population by marital status is recommended:
1.0 Single (that is, never married) 2.0 Married
3.0 Widowed and not remarried 4.0 Divorced and not remarried
Moreover, the CESR recommended (at paragraph 212) that those persons living in consensual unions be classified in accordance with their de jure (legal) status regardless of their de facto status.
The CES Recommendations also provided an option (at paragraph 213) for additional status categories with respect to registered partnerships or same-sex marriages where such can exist lawfully, as well as for a separate category for ’legally separated’ where national legislation includes provisions for this status in addition to ’married’ or ’divorced.’
Out of the 51 countries that responded to the survey, 48 collected data on legal marital status, while 3 (Georgia, Kazakhstan and Liechtenstein) did not. Though the United States also reported that it did not ask a question on ’marital status’ in its decennial censuses it does so in its American Community Survey - though guidance to the respondent on how to answer is only available in the associated help items and the question is usually interpreted by respondent to mean ’legal status’.
In eight countries (Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom), there were additional categories for persons in registered partnerships, which distinguished those currently in such partnerships and those whose legal partnership had terminated due to death or legal dissolution. Some countries included categories for legally separated persons.
Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, the Russian Federation and Tajikistan used a classification that mixed legal and de facto marital status (see Table 12.1).
Most countries were thus able to provide data on legal marital status complying with the CES Recommendations, though the inclusion of registered partnerships in the marital status classification in several countries does affect the comparability to some degree with other countries.
Twenty-six countries recorded legal marital status for persons of any age, whilst 17 countries recorded it only for persons aged 15 and above, and 4 countries (Croatia, Malta, the Republic of Moldova and the Russian Federation) for persons aged 16 and above.
De facto marital status (non-core topic)
De facto marital status is defined by the CESR (at paragraph 217) as the marital status of each individual in terms of his or her actual living arrangements within the household enumerated.
Implicitly this is irrespective of the person’s legal status. The suggested, and very basic, classification is:
1.0 Person living in a consensual union 2.0 Person not living in consensual union
with the specification that “two persons are taken to be partners in a consensual union when they have usual residence in the same household, are not married to each other, and have a marriage-like relationship to each other” (CESR paragraph 218-219).
123 Table 12.1
Countries that used a classification of legal marital status different from the recommended classification
Country Notes
Armenia Mixed classification with de facto marital status: never married, married (registered), married (not registered), marriage carried out only with church canonical ritual, widowed, divorced (registered), separated (not registered).
Azerbaijan Persons who indicated married were asked whether their marriage is registered.
Belarus Mixed classification with de facto marital status: never married, married, in common-law marriage, widow(er), officially divorced.
Belgium Extra categories exist for:
In a registered partnership
Registered partnership ended with the death of partner (and not married or in a new registered partnership)
Registered partnership legally dissolved (and not married or in a new registered partnership).
Canada An extra category exists for separated, but still legally married.
Denmark The definition also included persons in registered partnerships and persons in registered partnerships ended with death or legally dissolved.
Finland Extra categories exist for:
Partner in a registered partnership
Divorced from a registered partnership
Widowed after a registered partnership.
Greece Extra categories exist for:
Separated
Partner in a registered partnership
Divorced from a registered partnership
Widowed after a registered partnership.
Hungary Extra categories exist for:
Partner in a registered partnership
Divorced from a registered partnership
Widowed after a registered partnership.
Kyrgyzstan Mixed classification with de facto marital status: never married, in a registered marriage, in an unregistered marriage, widow(er) (regardless of whether the marriage with the deceased partner was registered or not), divorced, separated (either from an unregistered or registered marriage and in the latter case, not legally divorced).
Russian
Federation Persons in a marriage were asked additional questions: registered marriage.
In addition to officially divorced (divorce registered) additional information were given as:
separated (those who are in official marriage broke up and divorce is not officially registered, and those who were not in wedlock and divorced).
Sweden Extra categories exist for:
Partner in a registered partnership
Divorced from a registered partnership
Widowed after a registered partnership.
Switzerland More detailed classification: Single, Married, Widowed, Divorced, Unmarried, In a registered partnership, Partnership dissolved.
Tajikistan Mixed classification with de facto marital status: never married, in a registered marriage, in an unregistered marriage, widow(er), divorced, separated.
United
Kingdom Extra categories for persons in a civil (same sex) partnership or who whose former civil partnership had ended through death or dissolution
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De facto marital status is a non-core topic which is most of interest for countries that have experienced increases in the number of persons living in consensual unions. Information on de facto marital status is most often derived from information collected on topics related to household and family characteristics of persons, characteristics of family nuclei and characteristics of private households, based on the relationship to the reference person question or the full household relationship matrix in countries where the matrix is used.
Forty-eight countries collected or derived information on de facto marital status, including Sweden and the Netherlands that reported that this information was not collected but was imputed using register data. In Albania, the Czech Republic, Germany, and Latvia, and Tajikistan this information was not collected at all.
The most common approach to the measurement of de facto marital status was through information collected on the relationship within the household. Some 21 countries used for this purpose the relationship either to a single specific household reference person or to all other household members. The proportions doing so were broadly similar regardless of census methodology. Fifteen countries used information collected from a specific question on de facto status, while eleven countries used a general question on marital status in which information was collected on both de facto and de jure status (Table 12.2). Seven of the nine countries with register-based census estimated or derived the information from administrative data sources relating to household composition. Several countries used more than one method to obtain the relevant information.
A quarter of the countries that reported that they collected information on de facto marital status (11) also reported that they used a classification that differed, in varying degrees, from the CESR recommendation. In some cases the difference was because of use of a combination of both de facto and de jure categories, but in others the difference was more fundamental. The United Kingdom noted, for example, that the category 'not living in a consensual union' was ambiguous since, by definition, it included persons who were living in a married couple or same-sex registered partnership or living alone. It added, however, that persons living in a consensual union (as defined by the CESR) were identified.
The practice of using the same question to obtain data on legal and de facto marital status has been discouraged because the resulting data on legal marital status would not be known for those who indicate living in a consensual union (denoted “unregistered marriage” in some countries). The data from the countries with such practice is thus not fully comparable.
Table 12.2
Countries that collected data on de facto marital status, by means of doing so and compliance with the CES Recommendations (number of countries)
Means of collecting information on de facto marital status
Total
Type of census Region Traditional Register
125 Marriage and fertility topics (non-core)
Associated with the data collected in the census on marital status, but considered as non-core topics in the CESR, is information relating to the timing and duration of marriage and the fertility history of women. This information is often collected in countries where there is no universal system of vital registration and where, as a consequence, the census provides the only comprehensive source of information about fertility and population growth.
The CESR recommended that the ’total number of children born alive’ - if included in the census - should be asked of all women (CESR paragraph 222) and should include all children born alive during the women’s lifetime (including those born in previous marriages) up to the census date, but should not include stillbirths (paragraph 223).
Of the 51 countries that answered this survey question, just over two thirds (35) reported that they collected information on the total number of live-born children. Among countries with a traditional census this proportion was significantly higher (three quarters) compared with just a third of those countries with a register-based census. At first it might seem, therefore, that countries using administrative registers have more difficulties in collecting fertility data for census purposes. But, conversely, it may be that such countries have sufficiently good vital registration data not to require this (non-core) information to be collected specifically for the census.
Thirty-four of the 35 countries collected information on all live-born children to a woman over her lifetime. In Finland, where data are available from registers, information on children born abroad and who had not immigrated with their parents is not collected. Belarus only collected data on children born in the current marriage who were alive on census day.
Nine out of the 35 countries (Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Czech Republic, Finland, Georgia, Greece, Kazakhstan, Malta and Turkey) reported that they collected data related to the age or date of birth of the woman’s children. In Lithuania and the Russian Federation, only the date of birth of first child was asked. In Serbia information on the year of birth for the first three children and year of birth of the youngest child (if the woman gave birth to more than three children) was collected. Liechtenstein provided information concerning the year of birth of up to the four eldest children and of the youngest.
Only three countries - Finland (register-based census), Tajikistan (traditional census) and Turkey (combined census) - reported that they collected information on the age at death or date of death of children. In the case of Tajikistan the information on date of death was collected only for the children aged up to 5 years who had died in the year before the census, and in Finland, dates of birth and death were not available if the children had died before 1970.
Notwithstanding the CESR recommendation above, only seven countries collected fertility information on women of all ages (Table 12.3). Furthermore, although Serbia did so, it reported that for confidentiality reasons only data relating to women aged 14 or over are published. The majority of countries (21 out of the 35) referred to women aged 15 or over, and the bulk of these were countries outside the EEA, including mostly countries in Eastern Europe and the CIS.
With the purpose of extending the knowledge that can be derived from data on number of live born children, it was suggested by the CES Recommendations that information could be collected relating to the duration of marriage of ever married women, stressing that, if relevant, both first marriage and current marriage dates should be recorded. And reflecting the increase in consensual unions, the collection of comparable data on the duration of such unions was also recommended. In the event however, only 15 countries attempted to collect one or more items of this information in the 2010 round of censuses (Table 12.4).
126 Table 12.3
Age of women on whom countries collected fertility-related information (number of countries)
Age of women Total
Type of census Region Traditional
Register-based Combined EEA Non-EEA
Information not collected 16 7 6 3 13 3
Information collected 35 25 3 7 17 18
....On women aged
………16 and over 1 0 0 1 1 0
………16-49 1 0 0 1 1 0
………15 and over 21 16 1 4 5 16
………12 and over 1 1 0 0 1 0
………11 and over 1 1 0 0 0 1
………10 and over 2 2 0 0 2 0
………All ages 7 5 2 0 6 1
………Age not stated 1 0 0 1 1 0
Table 12.4
Countries that collected dates of marriages and/or consensual unions, and whether current or first marriage/union was collected
Country Type of census
Date of marriage Date of consensual union First Current First Current EEA countries
Belgium Register-based X X
Czech Republic Traditional X X
Finland Register-based X
Hungary Traditional X X
Iceland Register-based X X X
Italy Traditional X
Lithuania Combined X
Malta Traditional X
Poland Combined X X
Romania Traditional X X X
Slovakia Traditional X
Non EEA countries
Azerbaijan Traditional X X
Israel Combined X X
Kazakhstan Traditional X X
United States Traditional X
TOTAL 7 12 1 6
127 The most commonly collected item was the date of current marriage (12 countries). Romania and Iceland collected three out of the four items (but neither sought to collect information on first consensual union), and seven countries collected two of the items, of whom Kazakhstan was the only country to report collecting information on first consensual union.
Summary conclusions and comparisons with the 2000 round
Age (core): Only one country (out of 51) did not collect information on date of birth in order to estimate age. In 2000 two countries (out of 39 respondents) did not do so.
Sex (core): As was the case in the 2000 round, all countries complied with the CES Recommendations. Concern about the lack of responses categories to cater for transgender/transsexual persons was not perceived to be a serious issue.
Legal (de jure) marital status (core): In the 2010 only 4 countries (out of 51) did not specifically collect information on legal marital status. And of those that did, only one did not fully comply with the CESR classification. This represents a significant improvement on the 2000 round when only 23 countries (out of 44) used the CESR classification and 19 used either different classifications or a mix of legal and de facto categories (this approach – not recommended – was used by 6 countries in the 2010 round). The use of additional categories to identify the status of legally recognised same-sex partnerships or marriages was adopted by 8 countries. In the 2000 round only 2 countries did so.
De facto marital status (non-core): In the 2010 round, some 45 (out of 51) countries collected or derived information on de facto marital status (compared with 35 out of 44 in the 2000 round). The most common means of doing so was by establishing the relationship of each person to a household reference person and/or to other household members; some 21 countries adopted this approach, but the proportion doing so fell from the level in the 2000 round when 20 countries of out 44 used the relationship information.
Total number of live-born children (non-core): Two thirds of countries (35) reported that they collected information on the total number of live-born children, and all but one collected this information with respect to the whole lifetime of the woman. Nine of these countries reported that they collected data related to the age or date of birth of the woman’s children. Notwithstanding the CESR recommendations, only seven countries collected fertility information on women of all ages.
There is no directly comparable information from the 2000 round.
Duration of marriage/consensual union (non-core): Only 15 countries reported the collection of any information relating to the duration of marriage or consensual union, of which the most commonly collected data item was the date of current marriage (12 countries).
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