USA Today: Census reports more unmarried couples living together
The number of opposite-sex couples who live together, less than a million 30 years, hit 6.4 million in 2007, show federal data released Monday. Cohabiting couples now make up almost 10% of all opposite-sex U.S. couples, married and unmarried.
That's up from 2006, when the Census bureau reported 5 million unmarried, opposite-sex households. But that figure was based on a question that some respondents might have found unclear. In the 2007 supplemental survey sample of 100,000 households, Census asked more directly whether respondents had "a boyfriend/girlfriend or partner in the household" and found 1.1 million more couples.
"We're not saying that suddenly since last year there's another million couples out there" living together, says Rose Kreider,. a family demographer with Census. "We're asking the direct question and it's making some people respond. It's a clearer question." ...
I remember from the 70s, that the IRS had a term "POSSLQ" (Persons of Opposite Sex Sharing Living Quarters").
For some odd reason, the term hasn't survived, despite a catchy sound.
One wit from that time wrote a jingle:
"Roses are Red,
Violets are Blue,
Won't you be my POSSLQ?"
Posted by: ZZMike | Jul 30, 2008 at 03:02 PM