Marital Status

https://publicschema.org/vocab/marital-status

normative

Categories describing a person's marital or civil status as recorded in a registry or administrative system.

CSV JSON-LD

Standard reference

UN Principles and Recommendations for Population and Housing Censuses, Revision 3 (https://unstats.un.org/unsd/demographic-social/Standards-and-Methods/files/Principles_and_Recommendations/Population-and-Housing-Censuses/Series_M67rev3-E.pdf)

UN P&R Rev.3 (ST/ESA/STAT/SER.M/67/Rev.3, 2017) prescribes five minimum marital-status categories in paragraph 4.164: Single (never married), Married, Married but separated, Widowed and not remarried, Divorced and not remarried. UN P&R does not assign letter codes to these categories. The single-letter codes (S, M, W, D, L) that appear in the system_mappings below are provenance of HL7 v3 / FHIR R4 and OpenSPP, not of UN P&R. PublicSchema adds consensual_union as an extension beyond the UN P&R minimum because most national registries and operational MIS systems represent it as a distinct status; UN P&R itself discusses consensual union separately in paragraph 4.171 as a related but distinct variable.

Values

Code Label Standard code Definition
never_married Never Married Person who has never been married.
married Married Currently married.
widowed Widowed Person whose spouse has died and who has not remarried.
divorced Divorced Person whose marriage has been legally dissolved and who has not remarried.
legally_separated Legally Separated Person who is legally separated from their spouse. Corresponds to the UN P&R Rev.3 category 'Married, but separated'.
consensual_union Consensual Union Person living in a consensual union (cohabitation without formal marriage). Extension beyond the UN P&R Rev.3 minimum category set; included because most national registries and operational MIS systems represent consensual union as a distinct status.

System mappings

OpenSPP

System vocabulary: MaritalStatus

System code System label marital-status value
S Never Married never_married
M Married married
W Widowed widowed
D Divorced divorced
L Separated legally_separated
C Consensual Union consensual_union

DCI

System vocabulary: MaritalStatusEnum

System code System label marital-status value
S Never Married never_married
M Married married
W Widow widowed
D Divorced divorced
L Legally Separated legally_separated
A Annulled no equivalent
U Unmarried no equivalent

Not covered by DCI: consensual_union

DHIS2

System vocabulary: Civil status

System code System label marital-status value
Single or widow Single or widow no equivalent
Married (conjugal cohabitation) Married (conjugal cohabitation) married

Not covered by DHIS2: never_married, widowed, divorced, legally_separated, consensual_union

FHIR R4

System vocabulary: Marital Status Codes

System code System label marital-status value
S Never Married never_married
M Married married
W Widowed widowed
D Divorced divorced
L Legally Separated legally_separated
A Annulled no equivalent
I Interlocutory no equivalent
P Polygamous married
T Domestic partner not yet mapped
U unmarried no equivalent
UNK unknown no equivalent

Not covered by FHIR R4: consensual_union

Referenced by this vocabulary

See full reference catalogue