# Married couples in the CPS **URL:** \ **Category:** CPS\ **Created:** [October 14, 2020, 6:12am UTC](https://forum.ipums.org/t/married-couples-in-the-cps/3803 "2020-10-14T06:12:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![molivo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/aeb1de/32.png) [@molivo](https://forum.ipums.org/u/molivo)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2020, 6:12am UTC](https://forum.ipums.org/t/married-couples-in-the-cps/3803/1 "2020-10-14T06:12:03Z")
I can attach spouse characteristics for my selected sample, but do those partners also show up in the individual data? That is, suppose I have the following situation: Individual 1 is married to individual 10 and individual 2 is married to individual 20. Is it the case that individuals 10 and 20 are also in the data as observations? eg ```auto id id_sp var1 var1_sp 1 10 100 1000 2 20 200 2000 10 1 1000 100 20 2 2000 2000 ``` or is it just like below? ```auto id id_sp var1 var1_sp 1 10 100 1000 2 20 200 2000 ``` ---
**Author:** ![molivo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/aeb1de/32.png) [@molivo](https://forum.ipums.org/u/molivo)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2020, 8:29am UTC](https://forum.ipums.org/t/married-couples-in-the-cps/3803/2 "2020-10-14T08:29:32Z")
So it seems the data like in the first table. But then, given that `asecwth` is the same for both partners, wouldn’t any analysis using that weight be double counting each household? ---
**Author:** ![KariWilliams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/82dd89/32.png) [@KariWilliams](https://forum.ipums.org/u/KariWilliams)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2020, 9:34pm UTC](https://forum.ipums.org/t/married-couples-in-the-cps/3803/3 "2020-10-15T21:34:52Z")
Your first example is correct. If you have not restricted your sample using select cases, no records will be excluded from the data. Attach characteristics simply saves you the effort of writing code to attach a spouse’s characteristic to a person record, but it does not remove the spouse’s record from the data file so the spouse will be retained in the data as a separate observation. [ASECWTH](https://cps.ipums.org/cps-action/variables/asecwth#description_section) is a household-level variable; it will be the same for all household members, not just persons flagged as spouses by SPLOC. For household-level analyses, restrict your sample to one person per household (e.g., PERNUM = 1).