How Couples Meet and Stay Together: U.S. Relationship Survey Waves 2009-2015

How Couples Meet and Stay Together (HCMST) surveyed how Americans met their spouses and romantic partners, comparing traditional to non-traditional couples. The dataset contains five waves of longitudinal survey data collected between 2009 and 2015. It was created by Michael Rosenfeld of Stanford University.

Use Cases

• Modeling relationship longevity based on factors like meeting context and parental education levels mentioned in the description.
• Analyzing demographic and geographic homophily in partnerships based on data about shared upbringing locations and schools.
• Studying changes in relationship status and reasons for separation across multiple survey waves.
• Investigating the correlation between sexual orientation, attitudes towards monogamy, and relationship quality as described.

Strengths

• Longitudinal design with five waves of data collection spanning from 2009 to 2015.
• Description details a wide range of surveyed topics including demographics, relationship history, living arrangements, and income.
• Data is released in public and restricted use parts, with the public part containing Waves 1-5.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Provenance

Source

Stanford University

Collection Method

Survey

Time Range

2009-2015

Geography

United States