The Marriage, Divorce, & Birth Data Compass

The Marriage, Divorce, & Birth Data Compass is an archive of U.S. population and family data developed by the National Center for Family & Marriage Research in collaboration with the Center for Family & Demographic Research at Bowling Green State University. The Data Compass provides contextual data on marriage, divorce, and fertility across multiple geographic levels and time periods, drawing from official administrative records and population estimates produced by federal and state agencies.

The Data Compass includes:

• Marriage and divorce counts available at the county levels for selected years
• Monthly state-level marriage and divorce counts for recent years
• Birth counts and fertility measures, including crude birth rates and general fertility rates, available annually at the county, state, and national levels

Together, these data allow researchers to examine long-term trends, geographic variation, and temporal patterns in marriage, divorce, and childbearing across the United States. Data from the Compass can be used on their own or in combination with other county- or state-level datasets to study social, demographic, and community contexts, or merged with individual-level survey data as contextual measures.

Do you want to know if the data you are looking for is available? Check out the Data Compass Crosswalk, which is organized by year and indicates the geographic level, measures available, and direct links to the corresponding data files.

Getting Started

Select a dataset from the available data collections below to view its description, access the data files, and review documentation and supporting materials.

Available Data Collections