Collection methods
Standard question module
The standard question for collecting Registered Marital Status is shown below.
| Q. What is [your/(name of person's)/their] current marital status? |
|---|
| ('Married' refers to registered marriages) |
| ☐ Never married |
| ☐ Widowed |
| ☐ Divorced |
| ☐ Separated but not divorced |
| ☐ Married |
The different wording options in the brackets depend on mode and who is answering, as follows:
- Paper or online form, answering for self: 'What is your marital status?'
- Paper form, answering for another member of the household: 'What is their marital status?'
- Online form where the person's name can be imported into the field, answering for another member of the household: 'What is [name's] current marital status?'
The term 'legal' is not used in the question wording, however the question encourages respondents to report legally registered marital status with an instruction stating that 'Married refers to registered marriages', and by not including a de facto option in the answer categories.
An additional question 'When did [you/(name of person)/they] get married? [mm/yy]' may be used to screen out de facto relationships if a more precise measure of this concept is required.
Registered Marital Status can also be derived from the suite of Social Marital Status questions.
Standard input categories
The standard input categories are the same as the categories of the Registered Marital Status classification with the addition of the supplementary category, 'Not stated':
| Never Married |
| Widowed |
| Divorced |
| Separated |
| Married |
| Not stated |