Cohabitation in the U.S.

1
Cohabitation in the U.S.

• Till Death do us part?

2
Cold Hard Facts

• Cohabitation among couples has increased so much
  in the past two decades that the majority
  marriages and remarriages now begin as
  cohabitating relationships
• Cohabitating couples tend to be of slightly lower
  socioeconomic status, more liberal, less
  religious and more supportive of equal gender
  roles
• About ¾ of cohabitating couples reports plans to
  marry, and while black and white couples are
  equally likely to expect to marry, blacks are
  much less likely to do so

3
Statistical difficulties and inaccuracies
Cohabitation produces

• Since cohabitation is a rather recent phenomenon,
  therefore it is difficult to assess the effects
  it has on children of cohabitating relationships
  and other long term effects
• Many children born to single mothers in fact
  are born into two-parent households, thus the
  negative connotations we attach to single
  mothers and unwed fathers arises primarily
  from our societies obsession of marriage as a
  necessity
• The attempt to gauge the meaning of cohabitation
  by comparing it to marriage produces problems
  because the meaning of marriage is dynamic and
  undergoing constant change as is the meaning of
  cohabitation itself

4
More difficulties

• Many statistics vary depending on the researchers
  themselves. While some find that the weak
  institutionalization of cohabitation causes
  cohabitors to report lower levels of commitment
  (duh!) and lower levels of relationship happiness
  than do married people, others find that among
  cohabitating couples that have plans to marry the
  relationship quality is quite similar to that of
  married people

5
Similarities/Differences between Marriage and
Cohabitation

• Differences
• Cohabitors tend to define marriage in more
  individualistic terms
• More equal gender roles and incomesmore
  successful cohabitation this is not true in
  marriage
• Married couples tend to be more homogamous in
  age, religion, and race-ethnicity

• Cohabiting couples less likely to pool
  incomecohabitation women worse off than married
  women
• Similarities
• Division of household labor is similar (enactment
  of traditional gender roles increases the
  likelihood of marriage

6
Explanations for the rise in cohabitation among
couples

• Rising individualism (increased importance of
  individual goals) and secularism (decline in
  religious adherence)
• Sexual Revolution of recent decades has all but
  erased the taboo of cohabitation
• In cases of divorced singles, people will cohabit
  as they learn either through experience that
  marriage may not be permanent

7
Arguments over Cohabitation

• Cohabitation viewed as an alternative to marriage
  is a threat to the institution of marriage
• Cohabitation is not an alternative to marriage,
  just a stage in the marriage process (prevalent
  in white women)
• Cohabitation as an alternative to marriage (more
  popular among black and Puerto Rican women in
  terms of childbearing)
• Cohabitation is not an alternative to marriage,
  but an alternative to conventional singlehood

8
Possible effects of Cohabitation

• It is too soon to tell the long term affects of
  cohabitation in the U.S. on children, the
  institution of marriage, and on the participants
  themselves.
• More research on exactly what cohabitation means
  to cohabitating couples is needed to increase our
  understanding of possible diversity in the
  meaning of cohabitation across gender, social,
  and race-ethnic lines
• Overall, cohabitation indicates how family life
  in the United States is being transformed, some
  argue radically, with legal marriage losing its
  primacy as the manifest center of family ties