 By Arielle Kuperberg The University of North Carolina at Greensboro
In the last 50 years, the percentage of men and women who cohabit before marriage – “living in sin” as it was still called in the 1960s – has increased by almost 900 percent. Today 70 percent of women aged 30 to 34 have cohabited with a male partner, and two-thirds of new marriages take place between couples who have already lived together for an average of 31 months. These trends are troubling to some because nearly a dozen studies from the 1970s into the early 2000s showed that men and women who lived together before marriage were far more likely to divorce than couples who moved directly from dating to marriage. In fact, on average, researchers found that couples who cohabited before marriage had a 33 percent higher chance of divorcing than couples who moved in together after the wedding ceremony. In light of those findings, some commentators have argued that reducing the stigma attached to living together outside marriage has been a mistake, leading many young couples to make decisions that put their future marriage at risk. In the last two years, newer research has suggested that the risk associated with premarital cohabitation may be receding. Sociologists Wendy Manning and Jessica Cohen found that for marriages formed since the mid-1990s, living together before marriage did not raise the risk of divorce. In fact, for a minority of women with higher than average risks of divorce – women with a premarital birth, women raised in single or stepparent families, or women who had had more than the median number of sex partners – living together while engaged was actually more protective against divorce than moving directly into marriage. My new research, forthcoming in April in the Journal of Marriage and Family, suggests studies have consistently overstated the risk of premarital cohabitation, and continue to do so even for marriages formed since the mid-1990s. This is because they have been comparing couples by their age at marriage rather than by their age when they moved in together as in the case of saving on drugs. On average, cohabitors move in together and start trying to “act married” at a younger age than couples who marry directly. My study finds that when couples are compared by the age at which they move in together and start taking on the roles associated with marriage, there is no difference in divorce rates between couples that lived together before marriage and those that didn’t. It turns out that cohabitation doesn’t cause divorce and probably never did. What leads to divorce is when people move in with someone – with or without a marriage license – before they have the maturity and experience to choose compatible partners and to conduct themselves in ways that can sustain a long-term relationship. Early entry into marriage or cohabitation, especially prior to age 23, is the critical risk factor for divorce. For Further InformationFor further information on why early settling down is such a risk and for more details on her findings, contact Dr. Arielle Kuperberg, Assistant Professor of Sociology, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, . [divider style=”shadow”]About CCFThe Council on Contemporary Families, based at the School of Education and Human Development at the University of Miami, is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization of family researchers and practitioners that seeks to further a national understanding of how America’s families are changing and what is known about the strengths and weaknesses of different family forms and various family interventions. The Council helps keep journalists informed of notable work on family-related issues via the CCF Network. To join the CCF Network, or for further media assistance, please contact Stephanie Coontz, Co-Chair and Director of Research and Public Education, at , cell 360-556-9223. CCF Annual Conference April 25-26, 2014: CCF’s 17th anniversary conference will take place on April 25-26, 2014, at the School of Education and Human Development at the University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida: Families as They Really Are: How Digital Technologies Are Changing the Ways Families Live and Love. Complimentary press registrations are available; please contact Stephanie Coontz for more information at , cell 360-556-9223. Twitter: @CCF_Families. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/contemporaryfamilies.
Once upon a time, living with your significant other before getting married was extremely taboo. Nowadays, however, it seems that it's taboo if a couple doesn't live together before walking down the aisle. According to the National Center for Family and Marriage Research, between 1965 and 1974, only 11 percent of women lived with their partner before their first marriage. Between 2010 and 2013, that number rose to 69 percent of women. For many people, shacking up is one way to find out if you and your partner can co-exist in a shared space and have a relationship that will last a lifetime. Of course, it’s not for everyone, and not every couple who chooses to co-sign on an apartment lease before they co-sign on a marriage license will actually make it to the altar. The question is, why? Patrick Ishizuka, a postdoctoral fellow at the Cornell Population Center, explored the topic through an economic lens in his study.
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Patrick Ishizuka received his Ph.D. in sociology and social policy from Princeton University in 2016 and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Cornell Population Center until 2019. He is currently an assistant sociology professor at Washington University in St. Louis whose research focuses on work, family, and social inequality. To understand how cohabitation influences relationships, money, and work, Ishizuka looked at data gathered from thousands of households between the years 1996–2013. Among his sample, slightly more than half of couples who lived together and experienced some kind of relationship transition ended up breaking it off: 1,121 couples dissolved, while 1,104 went on to get married. In fact, the odds of moving on to marriage declined by 28 percent between 1996 to 2008. When you consider all the benefits associated with marriage, it’s not unreasonable to think cohabitation might have similar perks—after all, the biggest tangible difference between marriage and cohabitation is a sheet of paper. But, Ishizuka writes, according to past research, the relationships of couples who live together before marriage are generally characterized by “relatively short durations and high levels of instability.” Studies have shown that the average time frame of these unions is less than two years, with only 40 percent ending in marriage. Interestingly, Ishizuka’s study went on to show that marriage is increasingly becoming a numbers game, and that “that wealth independently predicts marriage, with couples that own a home and receive interest from financial assets being more likely to marry.” In other words, the more money you make, the more likely you are to get married, especially if you and your partner make about the same. Alternatively, couples who aren’t as well off are more likely to separate. The study’s results may be a bit depressing, but Ishizuka’s findings do offer one glimmer of hope for those who are a little economically disadvantaged: Cohabiters tend to have more egalitarian views about economic gender roles than married couples. He puts to rest that tired theory that couples in which the woman earns more than her male partner—also known as the “male breadwinner perspective”—are more likely to break up before marriage because of the man’s fragile ego.
Equality appears to promote stability. “Equality appears to promote stability,” Ishizuka said in a statement. In fact, he continued, it’s what may actually “hold these couples together.” FAQ
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What is the relationship if any between people who cohabitate and then get married and those people who wait to live together after they Marr?
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