PHOENIX — The US Census organizes the population into households: Married, unmarried, living alone, with children, and without. We're looking at how the 2020 census, compared to the one from 2010, shows that American lives are changing.
Married couples are still the largest share of households but are not a majority and have not been since the 2000 census. The share of married households nationwide declined over two percentage points between the 2010 and 2020 census from 48.4% to 46.3%. A similar, but slower decline in married households occurred in Arizona, dropping by 1.6%. Married households in the state are a slightly higher share of the population compared to nationwide numbers at 46.5%.
Married couple households declined in every state. Only Washington DC saw a rise between 2010 and 2020. The steepest decline occurred in West Virginia, a six-point drop. Declines of over three points also occurred in Arkansas, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, and Connecticut.
Arizona is among the states with smaller declines in married-couple households but is just out of the top 10 states. The smallest decline happened in Washington state, less than a point. It’s joined in the west by Idaho, California, and Colorado, as well as a few states along the eastern seaboard from Massachusetts to Florida.
Household makeup is also changing in Arizona. Due to population growth, all households grew by 14% here. Married couple households, while dropping as a share of household types, increased by almost 10% between 2010 and 2020. All household categories that included children declined. The largest drop comes from male householders with no spouse present, an almost 30% decline. Female-only households with children dropped by almost 25%.
A newer addition to the Census is the count of same-sex couples. The census counted 28,745 same-sex couple households in Arizona which amounts to 1.1% of all households, a slight increase from 2010. Arizona ranks 16 among all states in the share of same-sex couples. States with the highest share are Delaware, Oregon, Vermont, Hawaii, and Nevada.
