SPHISPAN identifies and classifies respondent's spouse or unmarried partner as a person of Hispanic/Spanish/Latino origin. SPHISPAN data come from two questions: one which ascertains whether the person is Spanish, Hispanic, or Latino, and a second which reports country of origin information for individuals who are Spanish, Hispanic, or Latino.

SPHISPAN was collected at the time of the final CPS interview, 2-5 months before the ATUS interview. Spouse or unmarried partner ethnicity was not updated at the time of the ATUS interview. Therefore, respondents whose spouse or unmarried partner was not in the household at the time of the CPS interview have a value of 9998 for SPHISPAN because information on Hispanic origin is not available.

A new Hispanic origin variable was introduced in January 2003. This version included less detail than the previous measure of Hispanic origin. For individuals who completed the final CPS interview in 2002, all of the detail of the earlier variable is preserved in the three-digit Hispanic origin codes. Users who are concerned about comparability may want to recode HISPAN using either the first or first two digits of the variable.

2003-2010: ATUS respondents with a spouse or unmarried partner.