(AP) — Five years after the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriages around the U.S., more than a half-million households are made up of married same-sex couples, according to figures the U.S. Census Bureau released Thursday.
Since 2014, the year before the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriages, the number of married same-sex households has increased by almost 70%, rising to 568,110 couples in 2019, according to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey.
Of the 980,000 same-sex couple households reported in 2019, 58% were married couples and 42% were unmarried partners, the survey showed. There were slightly more female couple households than male couple households. “Opponents of marriage equality frequently argued that same-sex couples really weren’t all that interested in marriage.
But the large increase in marriages among same-sex couples since marriage equality became legal nationwide offers evidence of the clear desire for marriage among same-sex couples,” said Gary Gates, a demographer specializing in LGBT issues. The survey revealed noticeable economic differences between male couples and female couples, as well as same-sex couples and opposite-sex couples. READ MORE
