Family status refers to the declaration of a dependent, spouse, or common-law partner on a Canadian immigration application. Dependents will typically be a dependent child of the principal applicant, of the applicant’s spouse or common-law partner, or a dependent child of a dependent child. When a family applies together for permanent resident status under a common application, the family status identifier and common application number can be used to link family members together. Family status identifiers are also available in recent temporary resident data, but there is no application number associated with the temporary resident permit records in our repository, so family linkage of temporary residents is not possible.Family status is represented by the FAMILY_STATUS_ID variable in non-legacy landing or temporary permit data. In legacy landing data, the FAMILY_STATUS_ENG variable distinguishes principal applicants from spouses or dependents, while the BASE_FAMILY_STATUS_ENG variable further distinguishes Principal, Spouse, “Dependant non J88”, and “J88 Dependant”. There is no variable in the legacy data with the full specificity of the non-legacy FAMILY_STATUS_ID, and no family status information at all in legacy temporary permit data.
Cautions about family status variables: