Soci 247- Cohabitation

Cohabitation

*A current lifestyle to is now an expected stage in most relationships

• Living together but not married

• Has however reached a plateau

• moved from ½ to 2/3 relationships

Class divide

• Class divide between cohabitation and marriage

• Less financially stable but secure relationships choose to cohabitate as opposed to marriage

• Wealthier individuals tend to marry > weddings cost a lot of money> they feel financially secure with their partners

“Drift”> Manning and Smock (2005)

Cohabitation is not clearly defined (like hookups essentially)

• Some people cohabit during summer and some all year round

• It is not legally recognized

• Generally not long lasting

• People often not in agreement about their situation (one wants to marry but the other doesn’t)

Huang on cohabitation

• Sex as the primary motivator for cohabitation

• Test drive for men> do I want to marry this woman?

• Transitional stage to marriage for women> we are living together so we can marry

Common Law couple/relationship

• Common in Canada but not the US

• Canada recognizes these couples who are not married in a civil union but have lived in marriage like relationship

• Having a common law status impacts rights and recognitions (taxes, healthcare decisions, property division, etc.)

• Differently regulated laws by region/provence

  • Quebec has one of the highest numbers of common law couples yet grants them very few rights

Rights of common law couples in Quebec

• Allows health care decision making

Trends of cohabitation

• Many cohabiting unions don’t end up marrying

• Lower class is more likely to cohabitate

• Significant class variation> socio-economic status

Key ingridients to attain marriage- “Marriage Bar” Gibson - Davis

1. Having health insurance

2. Having a bank account

3. Owning a home

4. Not being reliant on welfare

5. Lack of material hardship

6. Earnings are growing

7. Steady employment

• If you have four of these sevn you are likely to transition to marriage

Cohabitation/marriage/education

Higher education= higher income= more likely to marry

Cohabitation via age

• Older people are now more inclined to cohabitate

• # of cohabitationg adults 50+ dramatic increase

• Lower class couples move in together earlier 18-30

Kids and Cohabitation

• Not common historically for cohabitors to have kids

• Having children from other previous relationships is common in cohabitation

• Formulations, dissolutions, re-formulations

• Majority of babies in the US in the 21st century were to unmarried women under 30 in which half were cohabitors

Huang et. al Reading

• Though cohabitation is on the rise and young adults express similar cohabitation motivations, there are many disadvantages due to gender variation in their reasoning

• Men wish to cohabitate as test runs for marriage> is this person a homemaker worth marrying?

• Women wish to cohabitate as a precursor to marriage> ex: cohabitating together is a promise of future marriage

• In-depth interviews of men and women w varied educational attainment, race, and ethnicity

• Men expressed concerns about cohabitation diminishing romantic excitement

• Women fear that cohabitation would discourage partners from making commitment

Manning et Al. Reading

• Does cohabitation compensate for marriage decline?

• Studies focusing on NSFG National Survey of Family Growth capture changes

• Analysis on changes for through repeated interviews with adults of childbearing age

• Provides insights into cohabitation trends from 1988-2010

• Shows that cohabitation is becoming common and occuring later in life

• Treds suggest that there is a potential decrease in overall unions and that the US will reach high levels of cohsbitation seen in Western Europe soon

• If current patterns persist, young adults may be less likely to form unions > diminishing both cohabitation and marriage rates

Cohabitation effect

There is an increase risk of divorce that may accompany living together before marriage> together for longer periods of time

Challenges contemporary notion that living together longer strengthens bonds as it proves compatibility

Kuperberg: Countercultural Trend to Strategy for the Financially Insecure

• Based on an analysis on 13,000 women maried between 1956-2015

• Looks at the relationships between cohabitation and religion and education.

• Cohabitation and education trends show that women with higher levels of education tend to marry over cohabitate

• Direct marriers are increasingly higher in those who are also more religiou s

• Educational gap in premarital cohabitation was larger amoung women who attended religious services once a month

• Among women who had a college degree and regularly attended religious services, only 35% cohabited before marriage

• Shows that cohabitation has actually lowered divorce rates when considering factors such as education and age

• Societal acceptance of premarital cohabitation has grown but the dynamics vary accross education and economic backgrounds

Cohabitation No Longer Predicts Divorce: Kuperberg Interview

• Though the last 20 years of studying divorce rates have shown that cohabitation increases divorce rates Kuperberg argues that previous studies overstate divorce rates by not considering the ages of cohabitors

• Early entry into marriage is just as likely to be a critical risk factor for divorce

• Essentially the length of time couples are together is more of a crucial predictor than pre-marital cohabitation

• Evelyn Lehrer= delaying marriage past 23 reduces chance of divorce with every additional year added on

• Stephanie Coontz: added divorce risk paired with cohabitation goes down over time due to new formations and established norms> including those related to educational attainment and marriage