Marital status of person

Status: This standard was approved as a departmental standard on July 31, 2026.

Definition

Marital status refers to whether a person is living in a common-law union as well as the legal marital status of those who are not living in a common-law union. All persons less than 15 years of age are considered as never married and not living common law.

Person refers to an individual and is the unit of analysis for most social statistics programs.

Conformity to relevant internationally recognized standards

This standard does not conform with the recommendations for censuses contained in the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe Conference of European Statisticians (UNECE-CES) "Recommendations for the 2030 Round of Population and Housing Censuses", 2025. The UNECE-CES recommendations include the collection of information on the de facto marital status for persons aged 15 and over. Further, the UNECE-CES recommendations include (section 15.5) the distinction of the population by de facto marital status, specifically: persons living with a spouse or partner (registered or in a consensual union) having usual residence in the same household, and, persons not living with a spouse or partner (registered or in a consensual union) having usual residence in the same household.

In contrast, the current Statistics Canada standard does not distinguish between co-residing and non-co-residing married unions. This standard also provides additional information about the legal marital status of persons who are not living with a common-law partner.

Classifications

• Classification of marital status July 31, 2026 to current

Additional information

See:

• Legal marital status of person

Relation to previous version

• Marital status of person July 31, 2026 to current

  The definition of the concept "marital status" has been modified, but the meaning is unchanged. Minor wording revisions were made to the classification and the category names have been modified. The short title variant of the classification was removed.

• Marital status of person October 19, 2015 to July 30, 2026

  The classification of marital status has been updated with some revised category labels. Some definitions have been revised for greater clarity and simplicity but no essential changes have been made. A short title variant of the classification has been added for potential use in dissemination.

• Marital status of person October 20, 2008 to October 18, 2015

  This was the departmental standard from October 20, 2008 to October 18, 2015.