Demographic Research

Instead, the new census questionnaire may tell people to check the “categories” that describe them.

The race, ethnicity and origin categories used in the U.S. decennial census have shifted over time often in a reflection of current politics, science and public attitudes. Our interactive tracks the category names from 1790 to 2010.

We released our first report on American multiracial adults, a group that comprises an estimated 6.9% of the adult population, or nearly 17 million adults. The report looks at who they are demographically, their attitudes and experiences, and the spectrum of their racial identity.

Under pressure from academics and advocates, the U.S. Census Bureau has abandoned plans to delete a series of questions about marriage and divorce from its largest household survey.

The bureau should be paying more attention to the needs and opinions of the people and organizations that use its data, according to a recent report.

The U.S. Census Bureau has proposed dropping a series of questions about marriage and divorce from its largest household survey of Americans, touching off a debate about the usefulness of such data.

Census Bureau officials and other experts do not expect counting same-sex spouses along with all other married couples to make a big impact on overall statistics for married couples. But if the number of same-sex married couples continues to rise, that could change.

The new approach reflects the bureau's evolving policy on reporting household relationships, as it tries to keep pace with social change.

Same-sex marriage is now legal in Washington, D.C., and 17 states (and Arkansas will join them, if a lower-court judge’s ruling last week is upheld). Now the federal government’s task is to produce an accurate count of same-sex married couples.

Americans of mixed race, American Indians, Pacific Islanders and Hispanics were among those most likely to check different boxes.