Bumpass, Larry L., James A. Sweet, and Andrew Cherlin. 1991.

"The Role of
Cohabitation in Declining
Rates of Marriage. Journal of Marriage and the Family 53 (4): 913-927. J.

Objective:

● authors document the characteristics of cohabiting couples, noting that the least
educated are leading the trend (class issues) and that children are present in 40% of
the couples.
● picture that emerges for authors is that cohabitation is a family status but one in
which level of certainty about the relationship are lower than in marriage
● authors look to the National Survey of Families and Households to assess the
relationship between changing marriage and cohabitation--study though is merely
exploratory.

BACKGROUND/PROBLEM:

● authors are interested in unpacking the connection between two observed trends:
○ Trend 1: recent cohorts of young adults in the US and most other western
nations have been postponing marriage relative to the cohorts that entered
adulthood in the period from 1945 and 1965; and
○ Trend 2: the number of cohabiting couples has increased greatly since 1970.
● Data from France--data=1985 survey of adults from 18-44; collection of their unions
including marriage and "living with a partner as a couple"; results:
○ Among all ever-married persons (<34) in 1985: more than 40% reported a
premarital cohabitation, compared to 20% among earlier cohorts (I guess this is
the 34-44 groups, yes?)
○ Does cohabitation compensate for the fall in the proportion ever married?
■ Yes and No:
■ Yes--before 1981, the fall in ever married was compensated by the
increase in the proportion who had ever cohabited--specifically the
first experience of living in a union was not occurring at a later age,
on average, but the first union increasingly was a nonmarital one.
■ No--after 1981/1982--situation changed and the proportion ever
married fell more rapidly and was not fully compensated by an
increase in cohabitation. This result has been observed in Sweden,
Australia and Canada.
●

Data & METHODS:

● National Survey of Families and Households--(NSFH)--national sample survey
of 13,017 respondents conducted in 1987-88; oversampled certain population
subgroups--single-parent households, stepfamilies, recently married couples,
cohabiting couples, blacks, chicanos, puerto ricans.
● authors are trying to replicate the type of analysis noted in France (above) and
Australia

RESULTS
● . Marital and Nonmarital Union Formation
○ The Formation of First Unions--proportion living with a partner before marriage
increased from 11% (1970) to nearly 50% (Bumpass 1990)
■ Figures 1 & 2--illustrate the effective of cohabitation in offsetting the
decline in marriage rates
■ figure 1 for males:
■ figure 2 for females: for women the proportion experiencing a union
before age 20 did not decline until the cohorts centered on 1960
reaching adulthood, which was in the 1980s; decline was slight
though.
■ conclusion from these 2 figures: results are similar to the ones in
France in which declines in the proportions experincing a union did
not occur until the early 1980s--appearing most in unions before
age 25 among men and in unions before age 20 among women.
■ Table 1: trying to compare the proportions married at ages 20 and 25 for
cohorts reaching these ages in 1970 and 1985
■ the sharp swings in marriage timing in the postwar period are most
pronounced in the 20-24 age group.
■ declines in marriage before age 25 are not as large as the declines
before age 20, indicating as we would expect, that some of the
decline in teenage marriages represents a postponement into the
early twenties.
■ columns 4/5/6: results show that the decline in having lived ina
marriage-like relationship by a given age is substantially less than
the decline in marriage experience by that age.
■ last column rpovides a rough indicator of the extent to which
increased cohabitation compensated for the decline in rates of
marriage for each subgroup in the table
■ for this column, it can be seen that cohabitation compensated
for the drop in marriage before a given age
■ more among females than males
■ blacks than whites
■ the less educated more than the better educated. p.
916-917.
■ Table 2: shows the number of years in marriage and the number of years
in any union before age 25
■ is the case that cohabitation offset the decline in years in union less
than the decline in the proportion ever in union by age 25 (48%
from table 2 versus 67% from table 1)
■ Table 1 & 2: it is clear that cohabitation has compensated for declining
marriage least among persons who have attended college.
■ for example, cohabitation offets 84% of the decline in marriage
before age 25 among persons not completing high school, compared
to 63% of this decline among those who attended college---
>contrary to the image of cohabitation as a college student
phenomenon.
■ Figure 3: displays the percentage cohabiting before age 25 by Education
■ Diffusion Model Theory: it was the impression that cohabitation was
an innovation of college students in the 1960s and that cohabitation
was rare outside the lower class taking into account common law
marriage and that once it was adopted by well-educated young
adults (hippy white people) in large metropolitan areas that it
diffused widely across the middle and working classes (of course this
ignores the prohibition of marriage among ethnic/racial minorities
 during slavery and post-reconstruction south!! but sure white
demographers theorizing on "diffusion")
■ Figure 3 does not support diffusion model
■ rather figure 3 indicates that among the birth cohorts of the 1930s,
who reached their mid-20s in the late 1950s--cohabitation in young
adulthood was restricted to a small minority in the lower educational
groups.
■ At all times, the percentage cohabitating before 25 was least for the
college-educated. This group did experience a surge in cohabitation
during the 1970s, so the claim that they were radically changing
their behavior was correct. But so was everyone else! p. 918.

○ Postmarital Union Formation

■ Table 3 presents proportion remarrying and the proportion forming any
union, within 5 years of separation for cohorts that separated from 1963
to 1967 and from 1977 adn 1981
■ although the proportion remarrying within 5 years of separation
declined 16% between 1970 and the early 1980s, the proportion
who had formed a new union within 5 years actually increased-
---HENCe--cohabitation has compensated fully for the fall in
remarriage. p. 918.
■ What we know: cohabitation is even more common among separated and
divorced than among never married;

● Characteristis of Cohabitors
○ Duration and Presence of Children: although only about 1 out of 10 remain
cohabiting after 5 years withouth marrying of breaking up, it does not mean
that there are few cohabitation of long duration at any point in time
■ table 4 shows that 20% of cohabiting couples have lived together for 5 or
more years. the duration of cohabiting unions is longer among previously
married persons. p. 919.
■ table 5: image of cohabitation is that it's young people and does not
include children, but 4 of every 10 such couples have children
■ proportion having children is 1/3 among the never-married and
almost half among the previously married.
■ table 6: the children in cohabiting households are not always young table
■ table 6 shows that one quarter of the households with children have
children age 10 or older
○ Attitudes toward Cohabitation
■ table 7 shows the percentage of cohabitors who responded on the views
on reasons for and against cohabitation/cohabitors under age 35
■ two major things that stood out from respondents taht was regarded
as "IMPORTANT" were:
■ "couples can be sure they are compatible before
marriage"===(cohabitation==test marriage?)
■ "share living expenses"==(cohabitation driven by economic
decision-making)
○ How Married life Would be Different
■ table 8 displays views on how being "married" would change their life
■ interestingly and not unexpected various gender differences appear
■ for men--nearly a third of men but only a sixth of women report that
their "freedom to do what they want (i.e., sleep with other people)
would be worse if they were married
 ■ for women--report that their economic security and emotional
security would be better if they were married (i.e., if men cheat in
marriage there are consequence--financial/legal--hence marriage is
economically/emotionally more secure)
○ Perceived Stability: what we know--cohabiting unions are much less than stable
than those that being as marriages--
■ 40% of cohabitation will disrupt before marriage & marriages that are
preceded by living together have 50% higher disruption rates that
marriages withouth premarital cohabitation (bumpass & sweet, 1989b)
■ why?
■ could be that people that cohabitate are less traditional in their
family values (??)-->more likely to accept divorce
■ some evidence indicating that cohabitators think of
marriage as less of an instit that supposed to be a
lifetime relationship than among married individuals
■ cohabiting unions are less well adjusted--
■ selection into cohabitation of persons more tenative about their
relationships
○ Marriage Expectations
■ table 9 we see marriage expectations of our cohabiting respondents. p.
922
■ slighly less than half say they have definite plans to marry their
partner
■ 74% either have definite plans or think they will marry this person
■ high instability of cohabiting unions is not surprising when we
consider that about 1/3 either disagree about marriage or not
expect marriage.
■ cohabitors are not unware of the potential shakiness of their
relationship with almost half saying that they thought that their
relationship might be in trouble in the last year--and in 3/4
cohabiting relationships, at least one partner reports having thought
the relationship was in trouble. p. 923.
■ table 10 providing information on differences among cohabitors with
respect to whether they have thought their relationship might be in
trouble--whether they think they will marry their partner and whether
they think they will ever marry.
■ relationships of over a year duration are MORE, rather than LESS,
likely to agree to the "trouble" measure, while
■ those with 3 or more years duration are LESS likely to expect to
marry the partner the particularly likely to say they will NEVER
marry.
■ authors conclusions--apparently--the dominant selection process
with increasing duration is associated with marriages of better-
adjusted couples.
■ In addition, some subset of longer-dureation couples who plan never
to marry may represent more traditional "common-law" marriages.
p. 923.
■ Gender Difference: data suggests that cohabiting women seem
more tentative amoung marriage than cohabiting men--since results
indicate that females are more likley than males to report trouble in
the relationship, less likely to expect to marry the partner, and more
likely to expect ever to marry (net of other factors). p. 923
■ Racial/ethnic Difference: cohabiting blacks are less likely than
 cohabiting whites to report trouble in the relationship, and mexican
americans are also more likely to say that they will never marry,
reflecint traditions on consensual unions (??? unclear as to this
finding)
■ Childen: respondents with children report higher expectations of
marriage and lower reporting of trouble (some wishful thinking
going on here)
■ Economic Story: clear positive relationship between teh couple's
income and expectations of marrying the partner and a negative
relationship between their income and expectations of never
marrying. Futher--event those in the lowest income expect to marry
and income is also positively related to reports of trouble. p. 923
■ subtitution marriages: cohabitors that have been married before
are less likley to expect to marry

○ Attitudes towards Marriage among Never-Married persons

■ this section makes comparison between cohabitors and other unmarried
persons with respect to five items relating to marriage
■ table 11
■ never-married cohabitors are most likely to say that their parents
would rather they were married, whereas previously married
cohabitors are less likley.
■ cohabitation is clearly a step between marriage and dating with
respect to the constraints it places on indiv. freedoms
■ net of other factors, about a quarter of the cohabitors say
that their freedom to do what they want would be worse if
they were married, compared to about 2/5 of persons not
cohabiting.
■ among all unmarried persons, only a minority agree that it is better
to marry than to go through life single
■ 1/3 of unmarried persons say it would be alright for them to have a
child withouth being married

CONCLUSION

1. picture that is emerging--cohabiting is very much a family status but one in which
levels of certainity about the relationship are lower than in marriage

DISCUSSION
1.