There were about 1.2 million same-sex couple households in the United States in 2021, according to recently released Census Bureau data.
Roughly 710,000 of the same-sex couple households were married and about 500,000 were unmarried.
These and many other estimates can be found in the Census Bureau’s recently released package of tables and graphics about the characteristics of same-sex couple households, which are based on American Community Survey (ACS) data.
The package, which shows estimates from 2005 through 2021, was not released in 2020 due to the impact of COVID-19 on ACS data collection.
A larger share of same-sex (31.6%) than opposite-sex (18.4%) married couples were interracial.
Other highlights from the release:
This is the second time the Census Bureau has released ACS estimates of same-sex couple households since revising the survey’s relationship to householder question to more accurately capture same-sex relationships.
The ACS does not identify all couples living together since it only collects information about each household member’s relationship to the householder, rather than about the relationships among all household members.
Further information regarding ways the Census Bureau has changed how it collects information about same-sex couples over time is available.
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