Health, Standard 04/05/2005 Community services, Standard 25/08/2005 Housing assistance, Standard 10/02/2006
Definition:
A person's current relationship status in terms of a couple relationship or, for those not in a couple relationship, the existence of a current or previous registered marriage, as represented by a code.
This code usually refers to registered marriages but when self reported may also refer to de facto marriages.
CODE 4 Separated
This code refers to registered marriages but when self reported may also refer to de facto marriages.
CODE 5 Married (registered and de facto)
Includes people who have been divorced or widowed but have since re-married, and should be generally accepted as applicable to all de facto couples, including of the same sex.
CODE 6 Not stated/inadequately described
This code is not for use on primary collection forms. It is primarily for use in administrative collections when transferring data from data sets where the item has not been collected.
This metadata item collects information on social marital status. The recommended question module is:
Do you/Does the person usually live with a partner in a registered or de facto marriage?
Yes, in a registered marriage
Yes, in a de facto marriage
No, never married
No, separated
No, divorced
No, widowed
It should be noted that information on marital status is collected differently by the ABS, using a set of questions. However, the question outlined above is suitable and mostly sufficient for use within the health and community services fields. See Source document for information on how to access the ABS standards.
While agencies are encouraged to use the recommended question described above, it is acknowledged that this is not always possible in practice. For example, where the data collection is a by-product of the provision of a health or community service, the information may be ascertained using different means. However, the recommended question should be used wherever practically possible.
Comments:
The ABS standards identify two concepts of marital status:
Registered marital status - defined as whether a person has, or has had, a registered marriage;
Social marital status - based on a person's living arrangement (including de facto marriages), as reported by the person.
It is recommended that the social marital status concept be collected when information on social support/home arrangements is sought, whereas the registered marital status concept need only be collected where it is specifically required for the purposes of the collection.
While marital status is an important factor in assessing the type and extent of support needs, such as for the elderly living in the home environment, marital status does not adequately address the need for information about social support and living arrangement and other data elements need to be formulated to capture this information.
