Exploring Measurement Error Issues in Reporting of Same-Sex Couples.

The measurement of household relationships has a long history at the U.S. Census Bureau, but recent challenges include accurately measuring the number of same-sex couples. In 2010, the American Community Survey estimated that there were 593,000 same-sex households. In the same year, the census estimate for the number of same-sex couples was 902,000 (O’Connell and Feliz 2011). Same-sex couples are classified through two questionnaire items: relationship and sex. In an effort to understand the measurement error that might be causing the estimates to differ, we compared questionnaire design formats and modes and conducted a sex-by-name analysis, focus groups, and cognitive interviews. The paper demonstrates that misreporting of sex rather than relationship was responsible for the overreporting of same-sex couples. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]