Partnership Status in Current Relationship

Requirements

The partnership status questionnaire module must:

• collect at the minimum level 1 of the classification (that is whether a person is partnered or non-partnered)
• allow (and encourage) same-sex couples to report their partnership.

Alternatively, partnership status can be derived from living arrangements, legally registered relationship status, and sex.

Example

The example questionnaire module below is used in the core module in the General Social Survey, which is a computer-assisted personal interview (CAPI). This question asks respondents:

The core module is a standard set of questions that will be implemented steadily over time into Statistics New Zealand's social surveys under the Programme of Official Social Statistics. Each survey may be administered differently for example CAPI, computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI), or a self-complete questionnaire. As the core module is developed to accommodate different survey modes, the appropriate questionnaire module will be included as an appendix to this statistical standard. The core module collects and outputs at level 1 of the partnership status classification – that is 'partnered' and 'non-partnered'.

For surveys that do not use the core module the question(s) may vary, but should conform to the requirements contained in this statistical standard.

Note

• For interviewer-administered surveys: When the respondent's spouse or partner (or the respondent themselves) is temporarily away at the time of the collection due to, for example, work or medical reasons, and the intention is to resume residing together, the respondent should be recorded as partnered (that is, married, or in a civil union, or in a de facto relationship), not as non-partnered.
• For self-complete surveys: It is unlikely this component can be operationalised to the degree of accuracy required to collect good quality data. For example the Census of Population and Dwellings is excluded because it is unlikely this component can be operationalised to enable it to be collected accurately in the living arrangements question, which is based on usual residents within a household. The living arrangements question is also used for other purposes, namely to aid in coding of complex families and households during census processing.
• Survey areas must clearly state in their output reports that a usual residence criteria applies to partnership status information so it is immediately apparent to data users. For example the core module above collects information about the relationships for all people who are usually resident in the surveyed household, including the respondent's spouse or partner. The Census of Population and Dwellings is a household-based collection and the usual residence criteria applies to their partnership status information (formerly social marital status), therefore a person who is partnered must also usually live in the same dwelling as their partner.