POSSLQ ( , plural POSSLQs) is an abbreviation (or
acronym
An acronym is a word or name formed from the initial components of a longer name or phrase. Acronyms are usually formed from the initial letters of words, as in ''NATO'' (''North Atlantic Treaty Organization''), but sometimes use syllables, as ...
) for "Person of Opposite Sex Sharing Living Quarters", a term coined in the late 1970s by the
United States Census Bureau
The United States Census Bureau (USCB), officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System, responsible for producing data about the American people and economy. The Census Bureau is part of th ...
as part of an effort to more accurately gauge the prevalence of
cohabitation in American households.
After the
1980 Census, the term gained currency in the wider culture for a time.
After
demographers observed the increasing frequency of cohabitation over the 1980s, the Census Bureau began directly asking respondents to their major surveys whether they were "unmarried partners", thus making obsolete the old method of counting cohabitors, which involved a series of assumptions about "Persons of Opposite Sex Sharing Living Quarters". The category "unmarried partner" first appeared in the
1990 Census, and was incorporated into the monthly
Current Population Survey starting in 1995. By the late 1990s, the term POSSLQ had fallen out of general usage (having been replaced by "
significant other") and returned to being a specialized term for demographers.
In popular culture
CBS commentator
Charles Osgood composed a verse which includes
Elliot Sperber, the writer of ''
The Hartford Courant
The ''Hartford Courant'' is the largest daily newspaper in the U.S. state of Connecticut, and is considered to be the oldest continuously published newspaper in the United States. A morning newspaper serving most of the state north of New Ha ...
''s weekly
cryptogram, invented a cryptogram that (when solved) said:
In a fifth-season episode of the television show ''
Cheers
''Cheers'' is an American sitcom television series that ran on NBC from September 30, 1982, to May 20, 1993, with a total of 275 half-hour episodes across 11 seasons. The show was produced by Charles/Burrows/Charles Productions in association w ...
'',
Frasier Crane and
Lilith Sternin
Lilith Sternin (formerly Sternin-Crane) is a fictional character on the American television sitcoms ''Cheers'' and '' Frasier'', portrayed by Bebe Neuwirth. The character first appears as a date for Frasier Crane, though mutual hostility and d ...
describe themselves as POSSLQs.
See also
*
Cohabitation in the United States
*
Common-law marriage
Common-law marriage, also known as non-ceremonial marriage, marriage, informal marriage, or marriage by habit and repute, is a legal framework where a couple may be considered married without having formally registered their relation as a civi ...
*
Family (U.S. Census)
A family is defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes as "a group of two people or more (one of whom is the householder) related by birth, marriage, or adoption and residing together; all such people (including related s ...
*
Significant other
References
External links
{{Wiktionary, POSSLQ
"How Does POSSLQ Measure Up? Historical Estimates of Cohabitation" a U.S. Census Bureau working paper by Lynne M. Casper, Philip N. Cohen and Tavia Simmons, May 1999.
Acronyms
Marriage, unions and partnerships in the United States
1970s neologisms