Interviewer instructions
Questions 20 to 31 are asked only of people 12 years of age or older.
Question 20: Marital status
Only for people 12 years or older
20. [Name] is currently ...?
[] 1 in a consensual union or partnership
[] 2 married
[] 3 separated
[] 4 divorced
[] 5 widowed
[] 6 single
This question refers to the marital status and not the civil or legal status of the population.
Consensual union or partnership: people that live in a consensual union without having contracted legal or civil matrimony with the person with which they cohabitate. This category includes those people of the same sex that declare to be cohabitating as a couple.
Married: person that has contracted legal matrimony and lives with his/her spouse or partner, even if they do not live in the same dwelling for circumstantial reasons such as work, sickness, imprisonment, hospitalization, or other reason that does not allow them to live under the same roof; whenever the union has not been dissolved.
Separated: person that contracted legal matrimony or was in a consensual union and currently does not live with his/her spouse or partner because they dissolved the union without recurring to legal mechanisms, or solicited legal separation without having consolidated the divorce.
Divorced: person that having dissolved his/her matrimony in a legal way has not married again nor lives in consensual union.
Widowed: person that after the death of his/her spouse has not contracted matrimony again nor lives in a consensual union.
Single: person that has never married nor lived in a consensual union.
Remember that this deals with the marital status and not the civil status. Because of this you may find the case of a couple where one of the partners is legally married and the other single; in this situation, the marital status of both is "consensual union."
