Consensual partnering in Australia: A review and 1991 census profile

This paper is the second in a two-part examination of consensual partnering in Australia. The first part reviewed relevant literature and the deficiencies of census data for capturing the cohabiting population, and presented the basic demography of that population. This part extends the 1991 Census profile of the phenomenon. It traverses socio-demographic (religion and ethnicity), socio-economic (housing, labour force status, occupation and education) and geographic (residential mobility and residential location) attributes of those in consensual unions. It also briefly compares never-married and ever-married cohabitors as two distinct subgroups of the cohabiting population.