Strategic non-marital cohabitation: theory and empirical implications

Non-marital cohabitation is a rapidly growing global phenomenon. Prior literature examines the puzzling empirical regularity that premarital cohabitation is associated with higher divorce rates. Since cohabitation should yield improved match-quality information, one might expect the opposite. This result, and its recent weakening, have been explored empirically and produced theoretically using matching models. In this paper, we develop an intra-household bargaining model of alternative dating and cohabitation paths to marriage in which higher relationship exit costs for cohabitors relative to daters generates the observed higher divorce rate. We also show that asymmetric exit costs can produce rejection and generate exits that would not otherwise occur. In addition, we show that even when cohabitors have lower average marriage quality, expected utility for a given match quality is higher, and some utility enhancing marriages that would not have taken place without cohabitation will occur in its presence.     

Life course transitions of American children: Parental cohabitation, marriage, and single motherhood

We examine the life course transitions into and from families headed by unmarried cohabiting couples for a recent cohort of American children. Life table estimates, based on data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth mother-child files, indicate about one in four children will live in a family headed by a cohabiting couple sometime during childhood. Economic uncertainty is an important factor determining whether children in single-parent families subsequently share a residence with a mother's unmarried partner. Moreover, virtually all children in cohabiting-couple families will experience rapid subsequent changes in family status. Our estimates provide a point of departure for future work on children's exposure to parental cohabitation and its social and economic implications.     

婚配结构对夫妻婚后幸福感的影响研究——基于夫妻年龄、学历和家庭背景的对比分析

本文利用2006年中国综合社会调查数据(CGSS),对中国过去几十年婚姻市场的匹配情况进行了分析,并实证分析了年龄、 学历、 家庭背景三种婚姻匹配模式对我国居民婚后生活幸福感的影响.结果表明:(1)我国婚姻市场的婚配模式在年龄、 学历和家庭背景方面存在"男高女低"的婚姻梯度现象.但随着时间推移,男女之间的这种梯度差距在逐渐缩小,特别是在学历和家庭背景方面体现的十分明显;(2)在年龄、 学历和家庭背景三种婚配模式中,夫妻的年龄差异对男性和女性的婚后幸福感没有显著影响,学历差异会同时影响男性和女性的婚后幸福感,而家庭背景差异仅对女性的婚后幸福感有影响;(3)家庭背景方面,女性在嫁给一个家庭背景好于自己的丈夫时,其生活幸福感会明显提升,但这种效果更多地存在于农村.对城市女性而言,家庭背景的差异对她们的幸福感没有显著影响.     

Marriage,divorce, and mortality: A life table analysis

The life status table, an analytical model which follows a birth cohort through life and through the never-married, presently married, widowed and divorced statuses, is developed and applied to data from four Western populations. Particular attention is given to recent marriage, remarriage, and divorce trends in California. California data for 1969 imply that 40 percent of all marriages will end in divorce, that each marrying male will marry an average of 12/3 times, and that every woman born can expect to spend 61/2 years in the divorced state. Rising divorce rates may be seen as signaling fundamental changes in both the nature of the American family and the structure of American society.     

个体经济地位、婚前家庭经济差异与婚姻迁移

婚姻迁移是通过婚姻途径发生的并伴随户口变更的人口迁移。我国婚姻迁移人口的规模不断增长,婚姻迁移受性别、出生地、出生年代的影响,初婚年龄的队列差别对婚姻迁移同样存在影响。个人经济地位,即个人年收入越高,婚姻迁移的可能性越大。婚前男方家庭经济状况更好的婚姻迁移的可能性更高,女方家庭经济状况更好的婚姻迁移的可能性相对较低。     

Explaining cross-national differences in marriage, cohabitation, and divorce in Europe, 1990-2000

European countries differ considerably in their marriage patterns. The study presented in this paper describes these differences for the 1990s and attempts to explain them from a macro-level perspective. We find that different indicators of marriage (i.e., marriage rate, age at marriage, divorce rate, and prevalence of unmarried cohabitation) cannot be seen as indicators of an underlying concept such as the 'strength of marriage'. Multivariate ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analyses are estimated with countries as units and panel regression models are estimated in which annual time series for multiple countries are pooled. Using these models, we find that popular explanations of trends in the indicators - explanations that focus on gender roles, secularization, unemployment, and educational expansion - are also important for understanding differences among countries. We also find evidence for the role of historical continuity and societal disintegration in understanding cross-national differences.     

The changing character of stepfamilies: implications of cohabitation and nonmarital childbearing

Divorce, nonmarital childbearing, and cohabitation are reshaping family experience in the United States. Because of these changes, our traditional definitions of families decreasingly capture the social units of interest. We have noted how a significant proportion of officially defined single-parent families actually are two-parent unmarried families. The present paper expands on this perspective with respect to stepfamilies. We must broaden our definition of stepfamilies to include cohabitations involving a child of only one partner, and must recognize the large role of nonmarital childbearing in the creation of stepfamilies. We find that cohabitation and nonmarital childbearing have been important aspects of stepfamily experience for at least two decades, and that this is increasingly so. To define stepfamilies only in terms of marriage clearly underestimates both the level and the trend in stepfamily experience: when cohabitation is taken into account, about two-fifths of all women and 30% of all children are likely to spend some time in a stepfamily.     

The relationship between cohabitation and divorce: Selectivity or causal influence?

Recent evidence linking premarital cohabitation to high rates of divorce poses a complex theoretical and empirical puzzle. We develop hypotheses predicting that premarital cohabitation is selective of those who are prone to divorce as well as hypotheses predicting that the experience of premarital cohabitation produces attitudes and values which increase the probability of divorce. Using multiwave panel data from a recent cohort of young men and women in the United States, we specify and test models of these predictions. The results are consistent with hypotheses suggesting that cohabitation is selective of men and women who are less committed to marriage and more approving of divorce. The results also are consistent with the conclusion that cohabiting experiences significantly increase young people's acceptance of divorce.     

Cohabitation History,Marriage, and Wealth Accumulation

This study extends research on the relationship between wealth accumulation and union experiences, such as marriage and cohabitation. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979, we explore the wealth trajectories of married individuals in light of their premarital cohabitation histories. Over time, marriage positively correlates with wealth accumulation. Most married persons with a premarital cohabitation history have wealth trajectories that are indistinguishable from those without cohabitation experience, with one exception: individuals who marry their one and only cohabiting partner experience a wealth premium that is twice as large as that for married individuals who never cohabited prior to marrying. Results remain robust over time despite cohabiters’ selection out of marriage, yet vary by race/ethnicity. We conclude that relationship history may shape long-term wealth accumulation, and contrary to existing literature, individuals who marry their only cohabiting partners experience a beneficial marital outcome. It is therefore important to understand the diversity of cohabitation experiences among the married.     

Same-Sex Marriage and the Assimilationist Dilemma: A Research Agenda on Marriage Equality and the Future of LGBTQ Activism,Politics, Communities,and Identities

ABSTRACT

This special issue of the Journal of Homosexuality, examines the impact of the marriage equality movement and the resulting landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision, Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) that legalized same-sex marriage in the U.S., on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) activism, politics, communities, and identities. The articles in this issue examine the complicated ways in which the discourse used in same-sex marriage court cases is related to heteronormative discursive frames; the lived reality of married same-sex couples and the complex ways in which they think about marriage and heteronormativity; the ways that heteronormativity is racialized, which affects how African Americans perceive the impact of same-sex marriage on their lives; how same-sex marriage has influenced public opinion and the likelihood of anti-gay backlash; and the impact of same-sex marriage on family law. In this article, I draw on the empirical research from these articles to develop a theoretical framework that expands a multi-institutional (MIP) approach to understanding social movements and legal change. I build on and develop three conceptual tools: the assimilationist dilemma, discursive integration and cooptation, and truth regime. I conclude by laying out an agenda for future research on the impact of same-sex marriage on LGBTQ movements, politics, identities, and communities.     

The disappearing link between premarital cohabitation and subsequent marital stability, 1970–2001

Previous research has demonstrated that marriages preceded by premarital cohabitation have higher rates of dissolution than those in which the couple marry without first living together. Most of this research relies on data generated by couples who cohabited in the 1970s and early 1980s when premarital cohabitation was relatively uncommon and usually of brief duration. Since then, premarital cohabitation in Australia has become normative and thus less prone to selection effects. The period of premarital cohabitation has also lengthened and is thus more likely to provide opportunities to screen out unviable matches. This paper uses national survey data from Australia to explore whether, in the light of these changes, the previously observed higher level of marital dissolution among those who live together before marrying has persisted. It demonstrates that the higher risk of marital dissolution among those who cohabited before marriage has declined substantially in the 1990s marriage cohort and, after controlling for selection factors, has disappeared altogether.     

Debt,Cohabitation, and Marriage in Young Adulthood

Despite growing evidence that debt influences pivotal life events in early and young adulthood, the role of debt in the familial lives of young adults has received relatively little attention. Using data from the NLSY 1997 cohort (N = 6,749) and a discrete-time competing risks hazard model framework, I test whether the transition to first union is influenced by a young adult’s credit card and education loan debt above and beyond traditional educational and labor market characteristics. I find that credit card debt is positively associated with cohabitation for men and women, and that women with education loan debt are more likely than women without such debt to delay marriage and transition into cohabitation. Single life may be difficult to afford, but marital life is unaffordable as well. Cohabitation presents an alternative to single life, but not necessarily a marital substitute for these young adults.     

Family boundary ambiguity and the measurement of family structure: the significance of cohabitation

We used data from the first wave of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to examine family boundary ambiguity in adolescent and mother reports of family structure and found that the greater the family complexity, the more likely adolescent and mother reports of family structure were discrepant. This boundary ambiguity in reporting was most pronounced for cohabiting stepfamilies. Among mothers who reported living with a cohabiting partner, only one-third of their teenage children also reported residing in a cohabiting stepfamily. Conversely, for those adolescents who reported their family structure as a cohabiting stepfamily, just two-thirds of their mothers agreed. Levels of agreement between adolescents and mothers about residing in a two-biological-parent family, single-mother family, or married stepfamily were considerably higher. Estimates of the distribution of adolescents across family structures vary according to whether adolescent, mother, or combined reports are used. Moreover, the relationship between family structure and family processes differed depending on whose reports of family structure were used, and boundary ambiguity was associated with several key family processes. Family boundary ambiguity presents an important measurement challenge for family scholars.     

The pill and partnerships: the impact of the birth control pill on cohabitation

This paper investigates the impact on cohabitation behavior of the introduction and dispersion of the birth control pill in the USA during the 1960s and early 1970s. A theoretical model generates several predictions that are tested using the first wave of the National Survey of Families and Households. Empirically, the causal effect is identified by exploiting plausibly exogenous variation in state laws granting access to the pill to unmarried women under age 21. The evidence shows that the pill was a catalyst that increased cohabitation??s role in selecting marriage partners, but did little in the short run to promote cohabitation as a substitute for marriage.     

闪婚-闪离：农村青年的婚姻异化及其社会基础——赣南B村的新型婚姻模式

传统婚姻模式与家庭和村庄稳定的具有密切的关系,因而围绕婚姻模式形成了诸多的支持机制。而在打工经济引起青年农民大量流动的背景下,村庄与家庭结构发生了迅速的变迁,农村青年的婚姻支持机制逐渐走向衰落。本文分析了赣南B村的“闪婚”与“闪离”现象,探讨这种婚姻模式在宗族性的村庄是如何可能的。当传统的婚姻支持机制逐渐走向瓦解,农村青年的婚姻得不到支持与整合．在“闪婚”这一新现象之后,随即走向“闪离”,农村青年则在面对自身婚姻时感到了无奈和无力感。