Archiving Contemporary County and State Nuptiality Data

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Abstract Despite dramatic changes in family behavior—including the legalization of same-sex marriage— in the U.S., contemporary local level marriage and divorce data are not available. The deterioration and defunding of the marriage and divorce vital statistics system means there is limited capacity to understand geographic variation in marriage and divorce. A limitation of the American Community Survey is that it cannot provide a point in time estimate of marriage and divorce for all counties or county equivalents, and this is especially problematic in rural areas during times of rapid change. No centralized location or agency is responsible for providing administrative data on marriage and divorce at the local level. The call for local area family data have come from several constituent groups. While efforts have been made to fill this gap, spatial and temporal variation in how these marriage and divorce patterns operate since 2010 among different-gendered couples and since the legalization of same-sex marriage in 2015 remain unknown. Our objective is to continue our past efforts in amassing, assembling, and cleaning administrative marriage and divorce counts, and for the first time include counts of same-gender marriages. Further, we will harmonize the data spatiotemporally in statistical analysis friendly formats. This will enable researchers to link marriage and divorce data to existing data by county, state, and year—a specifically designated purpose of this program announcement. Our third and final aim will be to disseminate the data via the National Center for Family & Marriage Research and the Data Sharing for Demographic Research websites. The dissemination will increase awareness of these valuable data across many potential data users. This innovative project fits squarely with the PDB mission to enhance knowledge and data availability on families and households. This, in turn, is expected to enhance currently available data and increase their potential scientific impact through increased accessibility and efficiency. More specifically, we will be providing the first and only documentation of administrative data on same-gender marriages. The application is consistent with the purpose of the R03 mechanism and this specific program announcement and will offer a resource to a multidisciplinary set of researchers, policy makers, and practitioners.