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The changing face of intimate premarital relationships in Taiwan

Article in Journal of Marriage and Family · March 2023

DOI: 10.1111/jomf.12915

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Received: 29 April 2022 Revised: 6 February 2023 Accepted: 10 February 2023

DOI: 10.1111/jomf.12915

BRIEF REPORT

The changing face of intimate premarital relationships

in Taiwan

Yen-hsin Alice Cheng

Institute of Sociology, Academia Sinica, Abstract

Taipei, Taiwan
Correspondence
Yen-hsin Alice Cheng, Institute of Sociology,
Academia Sinica, 128, Section 2, Academia
Road, Taipei 11529, Taiwan.
Email: aliceyh@gate.sinica.edu.tw
Funding information
Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan,
Grant/Award Number: MOST 108-2410-H-
001-098-MY2
Objective: This paper examines changing intimate premarital
relationships in Taiwan.
Background: Marriages have been on the decline. Whether
these foregone marriages are associated with a rise in
cohabitation or other alternatives have become central to
a thorough understanding of family changes, yet relevant
research on Taiwan is limited.
Methods: The Taiwan Fertility and Family Survey
collected nationally representative samples of 23,495 men
and women aged 20–49 in four waves from 1998 to 2016.
These were used to investigate changing patterns of cohab-
itation, marriage plans among cohabiting couples,
premarital sex, and bridal pregnancies in addition to how
the patterns vary by sex, education, and cohort.
Results: More adults in Taiwan have experienced intimate
premarital relationships since 1998, with a shift from no
educational gradient to a negative one for cohabitation
and premarital conception. These patterns were gendered
during 2012–2016. With a persistently short duration and
fewer adults living together with the idea of eventually get-
ting married, cohabitation has become less of a prelude to
marriage than an alternative to singlehood, and very few
of these have involved children. These shifting behaviors
have been driven mainly by the cohort replacement effect
and intra-cohort changes.
Conclusion: Cohabitation has yet to become a long-term
stable union involving children. A lower birth rate caused
by later and fewer marriages has not been offset by non-
marital births in cohabitation, and bridal pregnancies did
not seem to have resulted in more marriages. Taiwan’s
socio-cultural context likely plays a crucial role in the
quasi-Second Demographic Transition family changes here.

© 2023 National Council on Family Relations.

J. Marriage Fam. 2023;85:987–1001. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/jomf 987

988 JOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND FAMILY

KEYWORDS
bridal pregnancy, cohabitation, marriage decline, premarital pregnancy,
premarital sex, Taiwan

INTRODUCTION
Marriage rates and period total fertility rates have been falling rapidly in Taiwan. As these major
life events are postponed to later ages, many adults end up not experiencing either by the time
they reach middle age (Cheng, 2020). Although past research showed that an increasing share of
Taiwanese women lived with a partner during their unmarried years (Cheng, 2020;
Lesthaeghe, 2010), this does not seem to have offset the decline in marriage and fertility. The
practice of living together outside of marriage is still relatively uncommon in Taiwan, and few
cases involve children compared to Europe or the Americas. We also do not know if men and
women have different experiences or if the nature of cohabitation here has shifted along the
six-stage spectrum ranging from “marginal” to “indistinguishable from marriage” laid out by
Heuveline and Timberlake (2004). In between these two extremes, cohabitation can function as a
prelude to marriage, a stage in the marriage process, an alternative to remaining single, or an
alternative to marriage entirely. There has also been a sizable share of bridal pregnancies in
Taiwan relative to its low level of nonmarital births (Cheng, 2020; Raymo et al., 2015). With the
rise in premarital sex, examining these different intimate premarital relationships to truly under-
stand the unmarried life of young adults is an intriguing empirical task. While it seemed at one
point that Taiwan had experienced a Second Demographic Transition (SDT) (Lesthaeghe & Van
de Kaa, 1986) with delayed marriage, low fertility, and a rise in divorce and singlehood
(Cheng, 2020; Raymo et al., 2015), its lack of nonmarital births or relatively few cohabiting cou-
ples has made Taiwan more like a “quasi-SDT” case among SDT countries. SDT theory and its
emphasis on a cultural shift in values of partnership formation seem to fall short of providing a
satisfying explanation for these dramatic changes in Taiwan’s families. The strong patriarchal
marriage values and gender norms of East Asia may also be the key to making sense of the
unique trajectory of these family changes (Cheng & Cohen, 2022; Lesthaeghe, 2014).

COHABITATION AND INTIMATE RELATIONSHIPS IN TAIWAN

The phenomenon
On the surface, it seems that more and more young adults in Taiwan are not marrying and not
having children. Roughly 57% of adults aged 30–34 in Taiwan were still unmarried in 2020,
and the singlehood rate by age 50 approached 20% for both sexes (Ministry of the
Interior, 1975–2021). The period total fertility rate was 0.98 in 2020, and the nonmarital birth
rate has kept to the low range of 2%–4% over the past half-century (Cheng, 2020; Ministry of
the Interior, 1947–2015). While improvements in the status of women alongside industrializa-
tion and development have been seen as the main structural cause (Cheng, 2020), there is more
to be unpacked if we are to find out why the pace of family formation has slowed down. The
number of married people and the completed fertility rate tend to be particularly lower among
the younger generations, creating generational differences in a given time period. These differ-
ences have led to a fascinating paradox where values have become more liberal at the very same
time traditional expectations have taken deeper root. That is, the younger generations are hav-
ing more premarital sex (Thornton & Lin, 1994; Zabin et al., 2009; Zhang et al., 2016), and
people are relaxing their expectations for women and married couples (Cheng & Yang, 2021).
At the same time, people have continued to prefer having children within marriage, and the
INTIMATE PREMARITAL RELATIONSHIPS IN TAIWAN 989

pressure to provide the family with a male heir (Cheng & Yang, 2021) has actually risen over
the past few decades. All of this underscores the importance of cohort effects in generating pat-
terns over different periods in family research (Ryder, 1965), as each generation’s exposure to
critical events and social changes has resulted in very different cohort experiences.
Conventional family values are deeply ingrained in East Asia, and premarital sex may be
tolerated but the timing and order of marriage and childbirth still follow a strict and socially
desirable path. The family system emphasizes marriage as the formal union and ideal context
for having children and strongly disapproves of “illegitimate” births. Whether single or in a
relationship, many unmarried women do not see having children outside of marriage as an
option. This is because it brings disgrace to families in a patriarchal Confucian context that
values female chastity and family honor (Cheng, 2020). While premarital pregnancies have been
gradually rising over the past decades to more than 35% of all births from 2010 to 2015
(Cheng, 2020), it has been common to legitimize them through marriage, although many might
have been aborted. These patterns stand out starkly against the modernization narrative, where
economic development is followed by diverse and unconventional families (Inglehart
et al., 2003). Cohabitation in Taiwan is discouraged and tends not to last long. The close link
between getting married and having children observed here is also very different from low-
fertility societies in Europe, where couples are marrying less but are also having more children
out of wedlock (Perelli-Harris et al., 2010).

The puzzle

Cohabitation in Taiwan seemed to be increasing until the early 2000s despite the connection
between marriage and childbearing (Lesthaeghe, 2010). We do not yet know whether this con-
tinued into the 2010s and contributed to the increase in premarital conception. More research is
needed to determine whether the increase in cohabiting couples led to more premarital pregnan-
cies after the early 2000s. The recent decline in marriage might also have been exchanged for
unmarried couples living together for longer. Whether these couples intend to eventually marry
will be a key factor in (1) defining the stages of cohabitation in Taiwan and (2) understanding
how this affects pregnancies, as past research found that cohabiting couples that intended to
marry were much more likely to plan to have children in Korea (Byoun et al., 2021). A more
comprehensive investigation of cohabitation, whether couples plan to marry, premarital sex,
and bridal pregnancies could shed light on how nontraditional family behaviors in Taiwan
appear in more intricate ways than those observed in the West. To better understand family
changes in Taiwan, it would help to determine whether the decline in marriage is related to a
rise in cohabitation or other intimate relationships as alternatives. It is equally important to see
how this is different for each cohort. Younger cohorts that are more exposed to new ideas and
values tend to transform public opinion and social practices by gradually replacing older
cohorts who espouse more traditional values (Ryder, 1965), creating a “demographic
metabolism” that can drive social change.
Aside from the increase in different kinds of premarital relationships, how gender and socio-
economic status affect these behaviors is also important to understand how families have chan-
ged. While both genders play a role, there has been less research on men, and we have more to
learn about their experiences. A rise in cohabitation can also begin either with the better edu-
cated (i.e., the SDT thesis) or the socially disadvantaged (i.e., the Pattern of Disadvantge
(POD) thesis), yet couples tend to be cohabiting more across all social strata over time
(Lesthaeghe, 2020). This could also apply to premarital pregnancy and sexual behavior. In an
East Asian context like Taiwan’s, it remains unclear which subgroup has led the increase in
these relationships, how these patterns have evolved, and whether it is different for men and
women.
990 JOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND FAMILY

An empirical investigation will both extend the timeframe covered in previous research
(Cheng, 2020; Lesthaeghe, 2010; Thornton & Lin, 1994) and explore how the nature of
cohabitation has evolved. Particular attention will be paid to the experiences of men along with
variations in birth cohorts and education. This study will also investigate the mechanisms driv-
ing the changes in these relationships from a cohort replacement perspective using decomposi-
tion analysis. As the literature in East Asia is largely focused on Japan (Atoh, 2002;
Kojima, 2010; Raymo et al., 2009; Tsuya, 2006) and China (Song & Lai, 2020, 2022; Wang &
Kan, 2021; Yang, 2021; Yu & Xie, 2015), Taiwan offers a once missing piece to the puzzle.

RESEARCH DESIGN
Data

The Taiwan Fertility and Family Survey (also known as the Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice
of Contraception [KAP] Survey) was begun in the 1960s by the Population Studies Center at
the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in collaboration with the Taiwan Provincial Institute
of Family Planning. The first round of surveys was conducted in 1965 when the total fertility
rate was over four children. This long-running project began as a continuous collaboration
between the Michigan team and the Taiwanese government. It includes nationally representa-
tive samples of married women aged 20–49 in waves starting from 1965, and the most recent
and final round of survey was conducted in 2016. The samples were selected using a multistage,
stratified sampling method to ensure representativeness at the national level. Sample sizes range
from a few thousand to over 10,000 depending on the survey round. Respondents were 20–
59 years of age in 1998, but this was later changed to ages 20–49 in the surveys after 2004.
This study makes use of data from the last four waves collected in 1998, 2004, 2012, and
2016 to examine intimate premarital relationships for both sexes. These 4 years are the only
rounds of the KAP survey that include a section asking respondents about their cohabiting
experiences in a self-administered questionnaire. While the KAP surveys have historically
focused on the experiences of married women, reports on single women were first included in
the 1998 survey. The 2012 survey began to collect reports from single and married men. These
changes have allowed for the additional analysis of men and women separately with larger sam-
ple sizes. Questions for married and single women (as well as for men in 2012 and 2016) on
cohabitation, intent to marry, premarital sex, and bridal pregnancies were asked in these four
waves and included in the analysis. Due to the limited number of questions and varying lengths
of the cohabitation sections in the KAP surveys, only variables that were asked consistently in
the 1998–2016 period were analyzed. All 23,495 respondents in these four waves were analyzed,
and 21,107 of them with at least one stable romantic relationship were included in the analyses
of cohabitation, premarital sex, and bridal pregnancy.

Variables and measurements

Intimate premarital relationships variables
Whether a respondent had experienced cohabitation in a relationship is measured by a dummy
variable, with those reporting at least one experience as 1 and 0 otherwise. In 1998 and 2004,
both single and married women also reported whether they planned to marry while living with
their first partner. This question was not asked in 2012 and 2016, and the analysis includes only
whether a respondent planned to marry his current partner/spouse, which is reported for all
years. Respondents who planned to marry were coded as 1 and 0 otherwise. Experiences of both
INTIMATE PREMARITAL RELATIONSHIPS IN TAIWAN 991

premarital sex and pregnancy are measured by dummy variables that are coded 1 and
0 otherwise.

Sociodemographic characteristics
A series of 5-year birth cohorts were created for all but the first pre-1945 cohorts in 1998 and
the last 1995–1996 cohorts in 2016. Education is divided into three categories of less than high
school, high school, and college and above (including junior college, university, and above). A
dummy variable is created for relationship experience, with those reported as having at least
one stable romantic relationship coded as 1 and 0 otherwise. This variable is used as the expo-
sure population for calculating the prevalence of cohabitation, which is different from the
denominator measure of “having been in a cohabiting or marital union” often used in Western
research (Esteve et al., 2012; Perelli-Harris et al., 2017). The variable is also used as the
exposure population for premarital sex and pregnancy to assess the intimate behaviors of
respondents that had been in at least one relationship.

Analytical strategies

This study will provide an overview of the development of cohabitation, premarital sex, and
bridal pregnancies over roughly two decades in which Taiwan went through a series of dramatic
family changes. I first present descriptive statistics to show the sample distribution of marital
status, education, and cohort along with a series of key indicators. I then show the percentages
of women and men who have cohabited using different exposure populations as the denomina-
tors across the years. This serves to justify why the population of those who had at least one sta-
ble romantic relationship is chosen as the exposure population for calculating the different
prevalence rates in this study. Patterns of cohabitation, intent to marry, premarital sex, and
bridal pregnancies will also be shown across cohorts to show how they have evolved. The mar-
ginal effects of education on the probability of cohabitation, intent to marry, premarital sex,
and premarital pregnancy will be calculated using a set of logistic regression models that control
for marital status, birth cohort, ethnic group, religion, childhood residence before age 12, and
maternal education across survey years. Finally, decomposition analysis will unravel what has
driven these behavioral changes.

RESULTS

Table 1 presents the sample sizes and characteristics of respondents across survey years. There
were roughly 3500–4400 respondents in the different waves of KAP 1998–2016, and more were
married than single. The education of female respondents improved a lot between 1998 and
2016: the share of tertiary-educated women rose from 22% to 65% and almost 63% for men in
2016, while that of high school graduates dropped. Overall, the share of respondents aged
20–49 who had never had a stable romantic relationship increased from 7% to 10% for women
in 1998–2016 and reached nearly 12% for men in 2016. Among those with at least one stable
romantic relationship, the percentage of respondents who had lived with a partner also
increased from 10.8% to 30% for women during 1998–2016 and to nearly 39% for men in 2016,
yet the share of female cohabitors with a marriage plan decreased from more than 2/3 to slightly
over 1/3 during 1998–2016. With more couples living together, increasingly more respondents
experienced premarital sex, from 35.6% to 61.4% for women in 1998–2016 and 71.2% for men
in 2016. The prevalence of bridal pregnancies among women increased slightly from 17.3% to
992 JOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND FAMILY

TABLE 1 Sample sizes and respondent characteristics by KAP survey.

1998 2004 2012 2016 2012 2016
Women Women Women Women Men Men

Sample size, N 3555 4064 4354 3494 4427 3601

Never-married respondents 739 1199 1627 1292 2024 1752
Married respondents 2816 2865 2727 2202 2403 1849
Education (%)
Less than high school 44.56 24.29 13.14 8.67 12.72 10.25
High school 33.60 35.20 29.77 26.25 28.42 26.94
College and above 21.84 40.51 57.10 65.07 58.86 62.82
Birth cohort (%)
<1945 10.04a
1945–1949 8.86
1950–1954 13.02
1955–1959 14.26 15.72
1960–1964 14.57 17.79 10.27 8.56b
1965–1969 15.05 17.40 17.75 12.80 16.09 12.66
1970–1974 13.98 15.94 17.34 16.46 15.50 14.66
1975–1979 10.21 17.57 16.47 20.67 16.65 17.50
1980–1984 15.58 17.43 17.92 18.71 19.86
1985–1989 13.46 14.11 16.09 14.61
1990–1994 7.28 14.34 8.40 16.52
1995–1996 3.72 4.19
% Never had a stable relationship 6.96 7.47 10.15 10.03 10.52 11.75
% 40+ Never had a stable relationship 1.44 1.70 1.79 3.36 2.50 4.34
% Ever cohabitedc 10.77 18.81 23.20 30.03 32.85 38.74
% Cohabitors with a marriage plan 69.17 56.78 32.05 36.23 30.16 29.66
% Had premarital sexc 35.59 49.51 54.51 61.43 70.05 71.24
% Had premarital pregnancyc n.a. 17.32 18.86 20.52 21.18 15.92
Mean age at 1st cohabitation 21.50 22.01 22.00 22.24 22.47 22.46
Mean duration (in months) 29.55 28.57 29.33 32.84 30.76 33.07
Mean age at 1st sexual intercourse 22.38 21.32 20.91 20.94 20.54 20.70
Abbreviation: KAP, Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice of Contraception.
a
Refer to cohorts born between 1938 and 1944.
b
Refer to those of 1959–1964.
c
Refer to those with at least one stable romantic relationship.

20.5% during 2004–2016. In contrast, the share of men who experienced bridal pregnancies with
prior or current partners decreased from 21% to 15.9% during 2012–2016. The mean age at first
cohabitation hovered at around 22 years and the mean duration at about 2.5 years. Finally, the
mean age for first sexual experience decreased by almost 2 years from 1998 to 2016.
Figure 1 presents the prevalence rates of cohabitation that were calculated based on differ-
ent exposure populations. The patterns suggest that the rates tend to be the lowest for the expo-
sure population of all women or men and the highest among those who had been in a union.
While the third type of exposure population (i.e., those having had a union) is commonly used
in existing research, it may not be the best indicator for Taiwan. This is because marriage has
been on the decline and unmarried couples who live together are still not as prevalent as they
 INTIMATE PREMARITAL RELATIONSHIPS IN TAIWAN

F I G U R E 1 The percentage of women and men who had cohabited by different exposure populations across KAP surveys. KAP, Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice of
Contraception.
993
994 JOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND FAMILY

are in developed Western societies. Both have resulted in much higher rates than the other two
exposure populations. Hence, this study adopts the second type of exposure population
(i.e., those with at least one stable romantic relationship) to better capture the population at risk
of intimate premarital relationships.

Cohort variations

Figures 2–5 display variations among cohorts in intimate premarital relationships. Figure 2
shows very little cohort variation in the prevalence of cohabitation in 1998 and 2004, yet 2012
and 2016 indicate that the percentage of adults that had ever lived with a partner increased rap-
idly between the 1960s and the 1980s, with prevalence rates for the 1980s cohorts reaching 37%
for women and more than 45% for men in 2016. The fact that those born after 1990 appear to
have lower rates of cohabitation is likely due to their younger ages and relatively fewer relation-
ship experiences. Men in general have much higher cohabitation rates than women—about
5–12 percentage points higher for all cohorts before 1990.
The next set of figures explores the nature of cohabitation in Taiwan. Figure 3 shows that in
1998, nearly 70% of cohabitors intended to marry their current partners/spouses across different
cohorts, but these figures decreased to about 60% in 2004 for those aged 30 and above. In both
survey years, there were almost no cohort variations for those over 30. Cohorts began to
diverge rapidly by 2012, with cohabitors under 30 being much less likely to plan to marry than
older cohorts born in the 1960s and 1970s. In 2012 and 2016, female cohabitors seem slightly
more likely than male cohabitors to have a marriage plan. Figure 4 presents the prevalence
rates of premarital sex across cohorts for adults who had been in at least one stable romantic
relationship. Similarly to cohabitation, there was little cohort variation back in 1998 and 2004,
although more adults experienced premarital sex in 2004 than in 1998. Particularly among the
younger cohorts born in the 1980s and after, the share of adults who had premarital sex
increased rapidly in 2012, reaching as high as 69.4% for women and 82.4% for men. The preva-
lence rates for premarital sex had risen further for women by 2016 to 72.3% for those born in
the late 1980s. The trend for men in 2016 increased slightly for the 1970s and 1980s cohorts
compared to those observed in 2012. With premarital sex reaching a peak of 72% for some
women in 2016, one would wonder whether this was associated with increased bridal

F I G U R E 2 The percentage of women and men who had cohabited among those with at least one stable romantic
relationship by cohort across KAP surveys. KAP, Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice of Contraception.
INTIMATE PREMARITAL RELATIONSHIPS IN TAIWAN 995

F I G U R E 3 The percentage of cohabiting women and men with marriage plans by cohort across KAP surveys.
KAP, Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice of Contraception.

F I G U R E 4 The percentage of women and men who had premarital sex among those with at least one stable
romantic relationship by cohort across KAP surveys. KAP, Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice of Contraception.

pregnancies. As shown in Figure 5, bridal pregnancies increased only slightly across the three
survey waves from 2004 to 2016. The share of women raised more among those born after 1970
across KAP waves, yet the share of men decreased across cohorts between 2012 and 2016. Over-
all, the apparent decrease across age groups during 2004–2016 reflects the fact that many youn-
ger men and women and particularly those under 30 have yet to enter a stable romantic
relationship. Having been in more relationships may lead to more premarital pregnancies
among them in the future.

Educational variations
To examine how education affects the prevalence of premarital relationships, marginal effects
calculated from logistic regression models were used to control for the impact of covariates
996 JOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND FAMILY

F I G U R E 5 The percentage of women and men with bridal pregnancies among those with at least one stable
romantic relationship by cohort.
Note: The questions on bridal pregnancies was not included in the 1998 married questionnaire. Statistics for 1998 were
not presented because using only the reports of single respondents leads to small cell sizes by cohort and education, and
these tend to be unstable point estimates.

listed below Table 2. The probabilities of experiencing the four events by education level are
shown in four panels. For cohabitation, there has been no educational gradient for women from
1998 to 2012. Data for the year 2016 indicate that most educated women and men have become
much less likely to have cohabited than their less-educated peers. The second panel in Table 2
reveals no educational gradient in marriage plans among cohabitors across all KAP survey
years. Controlling for a series of covariates, the third panel shows that there has also been no
clear educational gradient for women and men with the rise in premarital sex from 1998 to
2016. Finally, the last panel reveals that premarital conception increased for most educational
levels between 2004 and 2016, while the educational gradients shifted from no variation to a
negative one in 2016. Tertiary-educated women in 2016 had the fewest bridal pregnancies com-
pared to their less-educated counterparts. A shift from no educational gradient to a negative
one was also observed for men in 2012 and 2016.

A decomposition of behavioral changes across time

To explore what drives the changes in these relationships, decomposition analysis was used to
investigate the impact of both cohort replacement and intra-cohort changes (Firebaugh, 1989).
The Appendix S1 includes an example illustrating how the analysis is done. The estimates in
Table 3 show that increases in premarital cohabitation, premarital sex, and bridal pregnancy
were mainly caused by the cohort replacement effect in which the younger generations were
more predisposed to these non-conventional behaviors. Intra-cohort changes were also crucial.
As individuals age over time, they also tend to become more accepting of these behaviors. The
overall decline in the share of cohabitors intending to eventually marry upon moving in
together was also driven by both cohort replacement and intra-cohort change effects. That is, as
the older cohorts left the study ( 37%) and were replaced by younger cohorts (17.4%), the
“loss” of their strong tendency to have a marriage plan was not offset by equally strong inten-
tions to marry among the younger cohorts for 1998–2016. For intra-cohort change, fewer indi-
viduals appeared to have intentions to marry as they became older ( 12.3%). Both processes
have made marriage plans rarer among cohabitors between 1998 and 2016.
INTIMATE PREMARITAL RELATIONSHIPS IN TAIWAN 997

T A B L E 2 Marginal effects calculated from logistic regression modelsa predicting the occurrence of different
intimate premarital relationships by KAP waves.

Women Men

Probability of having ever cohabited

Education levels 1998 2004 2012 2016 2012 2016
<High school 0.11 0.17 0.22 0.39 0.35 0.50b
High school 0.09 0.21 0.25 0.34 0.32 0.39
b
College and above 0.12 0.18 0.22 0.26 0.32 0.35
Probability of having a marriage plan among cohabitors
Education levels 1998 2004 2012 2016 2012 2016
<High school 0.67 0.57 0.20 0.28 0.31 0.26
High school 0.72 0.59 0.27 0.35 0.24 0.29
College and above 0.72 0.56 0.30 0.36 0.27 0.28
Probability of having premarital sex
Education levels 1998 2004 2012 2016 2012 2016
<High school 0.37 0.50 0.52 0.61 0.72 0.72
High school 0.34 0.51 0.58 0.60 0.70 0.74
College and above 0.33 0.47 0.53 0.63 0.72 0.72
Probability of experiencing premarital pregnancy
Education levels 1998 2004 2012 2016 2012 2016
<High school n.a. 0.18 0.23 0.40b 0.18 0.23
High school n.a. 0.18 0.19 0.25b 0.21 0.20
College and above n.a. 0.15 0.18 0.14b 0.21 0.11b
Abbreviation: KAP, Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice of Contraception.
a
These models control for marital status, cohort, ethnicity, religion, childhood residence before age 12, and mother’s education.
b
Denotes that a cell is significantly different from the other cells in a given year.

T A B L E 3 Decomposition of intra-cohort and cohort replacement effects in intimate premarital relationships

among women between 1998 and 2016.
(ii) Surviving cohorts
Total (i) Replaced (iii) New
change cohorts Intra Replacement Joint cohorts

% Ever cohabited 19.32 5.93 9.13 16.12

4.73 1.73 2.68
% Had marriage plan upon cohabitation 31.43 37.03 11.77 17.38
12.34 0.76 0.19
% Had premarital sex 25.79 21.18 14.40 32.52
5.45 4.89 4.10
% Experienced premarital pregnancy 3.22 7.13 6.23 4.12
3.43 1.40 1.40
Note: “Replaced cohorts” are older cohorts who were included in 1998 but not in 2016. “Surviving cohorts” are those who were included
in both waves of the survey. “New cohorts” are the young cohorts who joined the survey for the first time in 2016.

CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION

This research shows that intimate premarital relationships in Taiwan are changing. Some of the
marriages that would have occurred in one’s 20s and 30s have now been replaced by more
998 JOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND FAMILY

cohabiting unions, as cohabitation among women has shown a nearly threefold increase in both
period and cohort perspectives alongside an even greater growth in premarital sex at higher
levels. However, it is evident that first marriage rates have been on a decline since the 1980s,
nonmarital birth rates have stayed at 3%–4% since 1998 (Ministry of the Interior, 1975–2021),
and the proportion of women and men experiencing premarital pregnancies has only slightly
increased (as shown earlier). These all imply that many of these cohabitations did not lead to
marriage, pregnancy, or childbirth. This is also reflected by the share of cohabitors with a mar-
riage plan falling by half from a height of nearly 70% in 1998. Along with a persistently short
mean duration of cohabitation at roughly 2.5 years, these patterns suggest that as cohabitation
becomes more common, it remains a relatively temporary living arrangement without a strong
commitment between partners. The short duration of cohabitation in Taiwan resembles that
observed in 11 highly developed countries in the 1990s (Heuveline & Timberlake, 2004). We
have yet to observe whether the mean duration of cohabitation will rise to 3–4 years like that of
the 1970s cohort in some Western and Northern European countries (Hiekel, 2014). When com-
pared to East Asia, cohabitation seems to have gradually become an alternative single living
arrangement in Taiwan and China (Yu & Xie, 2015) but still serves more as a precursor to mar-
riage in Japan and Korea (Byoun, 2017; Raymo et al., 2009).
These results reveal that the nature of cohabitation in Taiwan has moved along the six-stage
spectrum put forth by Heuveline and Timberlake (2004). It remains to be seen whether cohabi-
tation will become a more stable and enduring union or even replace marriage. The meager
nonmarital birth rates and considerable share of bridal pregnancies indicate that marriage is
still considered the socially acceptable context for having children throughout Taiwan’s period
of rapid family transition. This is consistent with the fact that for men and women aged 20–49,
attitudes toward the importance of the family line, filial piety, and childbearing within marriage
have remained relatively stable across more than two decades since the 1990s (author’s calcula-
tions using the Taiwan Social Change Survey 1991–2016). It is worth noting that the share of
births from bridal pregnancies in Taiwan is higher than that observed in Hong Kong, Japan,
and Korea (Gietel-Basten & Verropoulou, 2018; Iwasawa & Kamata, 2014; Kim & Lee, 2018),
indicating the association of marriage and childbirth be even stronger in these places.
These changes are particularly salient when looking at patterns that shift along birth
cohorts. The cohort analyses indicate that as more younger men and women have cohabited,
they have become more likely to experience it as an alternative to singlehood than a precursor
to marriage. With a threefold increase in cohabitating experiences, there has only been a grad-
ual increase in bridal pregnancies from 15% to 20% for women at prime childbearing ages in
2004 to 20% to 25% in 2016. Cohabitation is clearly not followed by more premarital concep-
tion. Despite increasing cohabitation rates among men, fewer experienced a partner’s
premarital pregnancy in 2016 than in 2012—a peculiar pattern yet to be explained. While the
close connection between marriage and childbirth has been argued to be a product of strong
state regulations in China (Wang & Kan, 2021), Taiwan’s relatively constant level of bridal
pregnancies might suggest that strong social sanctions are at work. Couples may feel the need
to either “legitimize” premarital conception or avoid it altogether. This is particularly intriguing
when premarital pregnancies in Taiwan have been more concentrated among the less educated in
recent years, resembling patterns observed in Japan and Korea (Kim & Lee, 2018; Kojima, 2010;
Raymo & Iwasawa, 2008).
Concerning variations between gender and socioeconomic status, the results show that inti-
mate premarital relationships tend to be more prevalent among men, though these changes tend
to be smaller in scope than among women. This is in line with the more positive attitudes
toward cohabitation among men than among women reported in prior studies on China and
Hong Kong (Chow & Lum, 2008; Yeung & Hu, 2016). No educational gradients were found in
cohabitation, marriage plans, premarital sex, and bridal pregnancy from 1998 to 2012,
suggesting that the initial spread of intimate premarital relationships cuts across all social
INTIMATE PREMARITAL RELATIONSHIPS IN TAIWAN 999

classes in Taiwan. By 2016, women and men with tertiary education appeared much less likely
to have cohabited or experienced bridal pregnancies than their less-educated peers. This is con-
sistent with the positive association between education and marriage among women reported in
a recent study on Taiwan (Cheng, 2014). In a way, marriage might be more affordable to
better-educated women as their human capital offers them the means to follow a more
normative sequence of life events. Living apart before marriage could also be more feasible
for better-educated couples. Overall, these recent findings resonate with the Pattern of
Disadvantage thesis put forth in Europe and warrant more research to explore the causes and
consequences of this emerging pattern of inequalities. If the negative association between educa-
tion and intimate premarital relationships persists, the stability of marriages preceded by
cohabitation is an important question to follow. This has implications for the well-being and
development of children born into these unions.
There are several limitations to this study. First, it is not possible to study the consequences
of premarital cohabitation due to the cross-sectional nature of the KAP surveys and the lack of
date information for key family formation events. It is unknown whether these relationships
ended in pregnancy or marriage. Neither is it possible to know whether the share of cohabiting
unions that end in marriage is changing over time. Second, the KAP surveys did not collect a
complete history of cohabitation from respondents and only asked for information on first and
current cohabiting partners or spouses. While these four waves are the best data available for
Taiwan, there is as of yet no way to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the evolving
landscape of cohabiting unions here. Third, assortative mating patterns within cohabitation
are not analyzed because the surveys do not consistently ask about the education of the
respondent’s partner across the four waves of the KAP survey used in this study.
All in all, more adults in Taiwan have been in intimate premarital relationships since the
turn of the new millennium, and variations have emerged in gender and education. However,
cohabitation in Taiwan has yet to become a long-term stable union involving children like those
observed in the Nordic countries. Traditional values have endured and made the decline in mar-
riage lead directly to a decline in fertility even in the face of rising cohabitation. A lower birth-
rate due to later and fewer marriages has not been offset by nonmarital births, and bridal
pregnancies from cohabitation do not seem to have prompted more marriages. This is likely
one of the key reasons why the very low fertility rates in Taiwan have been so resistant to
change. When contrasted with the patterns reported in developed Western societies, the forerun-
ners of cohabitation in Taiwan might not always fit the SDT or POD theses. Instead, a negative
educational gradient only emerged after cohabiting unions became more prevalent. Hence, the
socio-cultural context likely plays a crucial role in the quasi-SDT family changes in Taiwan and
warrants scrutiny in future research.

A CK NO W L E D G M E N T S
This research is funded by a grant awarded by the Ministry of Science and Technology (Grant
no. 108-2410-H-001-098-MY2). The author thanks the three reviewers for their careful reviews
of this manuscript and for their constructive remarks and suggestions.

ORCID
Yen-hsin Alice Cheng https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6222-3603

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SU P PO RT I NG I NF O RM AT IO N
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How to cite this article: Cheng, Y. A. (2023). The changing face of intimate premarital
relationships in Taiwan. Journal of Marriage and Family, 85(4), 987–1001. https://doi.
org/10.1111/jomf.12915

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