Registered marital status comparison of Warrnambool (Demo) local government area forecast

Registered marital status comparison explained

Registered marital status shows the legal marital status of people aged 15 and over.

These figures are Place Forecast estimates based on Census data published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

There are five categories:

• Married: a person in a registered marriage.
• Separated: a person who is still legally married but no longer lives with their spouse.
• Divorced: a person whose marriage has legally ended.
• Widowed: a person whose spouse has died and who has not remarried.
• Never married: a person who has never been in a registered marriage.

Each person aged 15 and over sits in one of these five. Same-sex marriages have counted in this group since the law changed on 9 December 2017.

This page measures legal marital status. It is not the same as relationship status in daily life. For example, take someone living with a partner but not legally married. They are counted as Never married. To see relationship status within households, use the Social marital status page instead. The two pages measure different things and will have different totals.

The figures count people aged 15 and over at their usual residence. They include people in non-private dwellings, such as hospitals, aged-care homes, and student housing. They do not count overseas visitors.

ABS does not publish a Not stated count for registered marital status. Non-responses are classified into the published totals.

Reading this data fairly

These figures describe how people answered Census questions. Here are the equity caveats to keep in mind so the numbers describe communities fairly:

• A legal view of marriage does not fit every partnership. Many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and culturally and linguistically diverse families partner through kinship. Read these as legal categories, not as a full picture of how people partner.
• Read each category as a count of how people answered. It is not a measure of need or a judgement.

See the marker methodology for how these figures are calculated and their limitations.