Gender & Sexual Orientation
Incomplete and missing data based on gender has plagued the Census since 1790, when only the head of household (in almost all cases male) was listed by name. In 1850, no occupation was collected for “females or for slaves” and the 1870 Census noted that “women and children employed in factories are omitted in large numbers.”
The spirit of the census is that no one should go uncounted and no one should be invisible. We must expand data collections efforts to ensure the LGBTQ community is not only seen, but fully accounted for in terms of government resources provided. This information can also provide us with better tools to enforce civil rights protections for a community that is too often discriminated against.
– Senator Kamala Harris
- Incomplete and missing data based on gender has plagued the Census since 1790, when only the head of household (in almost all cases male) was listed by name. In 1850, no occupation was collected for “females or for slaves” and the 1870 Census noted that “women and children employed in factories are omitted in large numbers”.
- In the 1970s feminist social scientists successfully “decapitated” the census, ending the assumption that the head of household was by definition male.
- A persistent gender gap exists in income between men and women, across race and ethnicity.
- This gap exists even when controlled for educational attainment.
- Data about same-sex couples is available down to small geographic areas (zip codes and block groups) from 1990 to the present.