Married Same-sex and Different-sex Couples: A 2023 Demographic Portrait
Family Profile No. 17, 2025
Authors: Krista K. Westrick-Payne & Wendy D. Manning
June 26, 2025 marks the tenth anniversary of Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court ruling that the right to marry is guaranteed to couples of the same sex by the Fourteenth Amendment. Marking this landmark decision, we present an updated demographic portrait of marriages to same-sex and different-sex couples with 2023 data from the American Community Survey 1-year PUMS files. We begin with an overview of married couples followed by comparisons of individuals in same-sex married couples with those in different-sex married couples based on their marital history, age, education and race/ethnicity. For more information on same-sex and different-sex couples please check out our other recently published Family Profiles: Same-sex Married and Cohabiting Couples Raising Children, 2023 (Julian, 2025a) and Age Composition of Same-sex and Different-sex Couples, 2023 (Julian, 2025b). This is an update of a previous Family Profile (Westrick-Payne & Manning, 2024)
Married Couples
- As of 2023 there were slightly more than 60.5 million different-sex married couples in the United States representing 98.72% of all married couples.
- There were over 785,000 same-sex married couples representing 1.28% of all married couples. Among married same-sex couples 47% were marriages among male couples and 53% were among female couples.
- On average, currently married couples of different sexes were married longer with a median duration of 19 years. Married couples of the same sex had a median duration of 6 years.
Figure 1. Married Couples by Couple Type, 2023
Source: NCFMR analyses of U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey, 1-year PUMS, 2023
Married Individuals
Number of times married
Figure 2. Number of times married by couple type, 2023
Source: NCFMR analyses of U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey, 1-year PUMS, 2023
- Most currently married individuals had only been married one time. The share among those with a spouse of the same sex was slightly larger at 80.8% than among those with a spouse of a different sex at 77.5%.
Age
- Individuals married to a same-sex spouse were younger on average than those married to a different-sex spouse.
- About one-quarter (25.9%) of individuals married to a same-sex spouse were in their thirties compared to less than one-fifth (18.1%) of individuals married to a different-sex spouse.
- Over one-third (36.0%) of individuals married to a different-sex spouse were over age 60 in contrast to 26.0% of those married to a same-sex spouse.
Figure 3. Age distribution by couple type, 2023
Source: NCFMR analyses of U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey, 1-year PUMS, 2023
Educational Attainment
Figure 4. Educational attainment by couple type, 2023
Source: NCFMR analyses of U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey, 1-year PUMS, 2023
- Individuals married to same-sex spouses had higher levels of education than their counterparts married to different-sex spouses.
- The largest educational differences existed at the lowest and highest education levels. Slightly more than one-quarter (26.2%) of individuals with a same-sex spouse had a master’s degree in contrast to 17.5% of those married to a different-sex spouse.
- Only 4.4% of those married to a same-sex spouse have less than a high school diploma/GED. The share among their counterparts married to a different-sex spouse was nearly double at 8.2%.
Race/Ethnicity
- Similar shares of individuals married to same-sex and different-sex spouses were White (66.6% and 67.1%, respectively) or Black (7.1& and 6.9%, respectively).
- Greater shares of individuals married to a different-sex spouse were Asian (7.2% and 5.0%, respectively) or foreign born Hispanic (8.0% and 6.1%, respectively) than those married to a same-sex spouse.
- A larger share of individuals married to same-sex spouses were native-born Hispanic (9.5% and 6.8%, respectively) or labeled as ‘Other’ or multiracial (5.7% and 3.9%, respectively) than those married to different-sex spouses.
Figure 5. Race/Ethnicity distribution by couple type, 2023
Source: NCFMR analyses of U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey, 1-year PUMS, 2023
Data Sources
United States Census Bureau, American Community Survey, 1-year Public Use Microdata Sample, 2023
References
Julian, C. A. (2025a). Same-sex married and cohabiting couples raising children, 2023. Family Profiles, FP-25-07. Bowling Green, OH: National Center for Family & Marriage Research. https://doi.org/10.25035/ncfmr/fp-25-07
Julian, C. A. (2025b). Age composition of same-sex & different-sex couples, 2023. Family Profiles, FP-25-16. Bowling Green, OH: National Center for Family & Marriage Research. https://doi.org/10.25035/ncfmr/fp-25-16
Westrick-Payne, K. K., & Manning W. D. (2024). Married same-sex and different sex couples: A demographic portrait, 2022. Family Profiles, FP-24-06. Bowling Green, OH: National Center for Family & Marriage Research. https://doi.org/10.25035/ncfmr/fp-24-06
Suggested Citation
Westrick-Payne, K. K., & Manning W. D. (2025). Married same-sex and different sex couples: A 2023 demographic portrait. Family Profiles, FP-25-17. Bowling Green, OH: National Center for Family & Marriage Research. https://doi.org/10.25035/ncfmr/fp-25-17
This project is supported with assistance from Bowling Green State University. From 2007 to 2013, support was also provided by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation. The opinions and conclusions expressed herein are solely those of the author(s) and should not be construed as representing the opinions or policy of any agency of the state or federal government.
Updated: 06/13/2025 09:15AM