First posted on Institute for Family Studies Blog on 7-23-2014
Roman numerals are for footnotes at bottom of post, where you can also find further links.
Addendum 7-3-2016. The Guzzo paper is very complicated and, since I know few will brave it, I wanted to add a few more quotes from it. She covers various alternative explanations and implications of the trends that are beyond a blog article, but these quotes may add more to your understanding of what she's showing. It is a complex but pretty amazing paper.
As I suggested at the start of this article, then, the present results confirm the notion that marriage has become less a part of the cohabitation process over time. (p. 839)
These results—that cohabiting unions, even those begun with engagement, are more likely to dissolve and less likely to transition to marriage over time even after accounting for compositional shifts—is all the more troubling because it suggests that young adults are having trouble realizing their desires and intentions to form more permanent and stable unions, particularly marriages. (p. 840)
Roman numerals are for footnotes at bottom of post, where you can also find further links.
In a new paper, Bowling Green State University sociologist Karen Guzzo analyzes how the
odds of cohabitation leading to either getting married or breaking up have changed
over the years. Before getting to her findings, let’s review some of the
cohabitation trends she highlights in her report (based on prior studies).
- The majority of people in their 30s have lived with someone outside of marriage.
- Cohabitation, rather than marriage, is now the more common form of first union.
- Fewer cohabiting unions now, compared to the past, start out with the couple having intentions to marry.[i]
- People are more likely than ever to cohabit with multiple partners in succession—what I have called “CohabiDating.”[ii]
- More children than ever before are born to cohabiting couples, and this explains most of the rise in the number of children being born out of wedlock.
Guzzo
notes, as have others, that cohabiting has become a normative experience in the
romantic and sexual lives of young adults. As young adults put off marriage
until later in life, cohabitation has inhabited much of the space that used to
be made up of married couples. I think this dramatic change in how
relationships form matters for at least two reasons. First, cohabiting couples have
become increasingly likely to have children, but they are less likely than
married couples to have planned to have children[iii]
and they are much less likely to remain together after having children.[iv] That’s
not my subject today, but it should not be hard to see why it matters. Second,
most people want lasting love in life, and most people still intend to accomplish
that in marriage. However, the ways cohabitation has changed in the past three
decades make it less likely that people who have that goal will succeed in it. That’s
closer to my focus here.
It
is obvious that cohabitation has become de-linked from marriage. Guzzo addresses
a complicated question related to this change. Is it because all types of cohabiting
couples have become less likely to marry or are there subgroups of cohabiters
who are driving the increasing disconnect between moving in and moving on in
life together? For example, it used to be the case that a couple who moved in
together was very likely to get married—and, engaged or not, had an awareness
of this when moving in together. But most experts believe that has changed.
Guzzo wondered if those who already planned marriage before moving in together
are as likely as ever to marry while all the other groups in the growing and
diverse universe of cohabiters might be less likely to marry. Similarly, she examined
if demographic changes in who cohabits, when, and under what circumstances changed
the way cohabitation relates to marriage (e.g., analyzing variables such as race,
education, and the presence of children from a prior relationship).
To
simplify and summarize, what Guzzo found is that the increasing diversity in
the types of cohabitation and cohabiters does not explain much about why things
are so different from the past when it comes to increased odds that cohabiting
couples will break up or not marry. Rather, on average, all types of cohabiting
couples have become more likely than in the past to break up or not transition
into marriage. Here’s a quote from her paper (pg. 834).
Relative to cohabitations formed between
1990 and 1994, cohabitations formed from 1995–1999, 2000–2004, and 2005 and
later were 13%, 49%, and 87%, respectively, more likely to dissolve than remain
intact. The lower risk of marriage over remaining intact occurred only for the
last two cohabitation cohorts (2000–2004 and 2005 and later), which were about
18% and 31% less likely to marry than remain intact, respectively.
Moving
in together is becoming less and less likely to lead to having a future
together. That’s not to say that all cohabiters are in the same boat regarding
their destination. Those who are engaged (or have clear plans to marry) before moving
in together are far more likely to eventually marry—but as Guzzo shows, even
they are becoming less likely to do so. Related to this, my colleagues and I
have shown, in numerous studies, that couples with clear plans to marry before
cohabiting, along with those who marry without cohabiting, tend to have happier
marriages and lower odds of divorce than those who move in together before
having a clearly settled commitment to the future in marriage.[v] (We
believe this is largely because, while cohabiting unions obviously break up
often, they are harder to break off than dating relationships because it
becomes harder to move out and move on. So some people get stuck in a
relationship they would otherwise have not remained in.)
Based
on both findings and theory, I have long argued that if a couple tells you they
are cohabiting and you know nothing else, you know very little about their level
of commitment. Cohabitation is fundamentally ambiguous.[vi] In
fact, that is part—but just part—of why I believe it has become so popular.
Sure, there are many cohabiting couples for whom living together was understood
as a step-up in commitment, but, on average, research shows it is not associated
with an increase in dedication to one’s partner.[vii]
If
a couple tells you that they are married, you know a lot about their
commitment. That does not mean that all is perfect, of course. Likewise, if a
couple tells you that they have clear, mutual plans to marry, you can infer
there is a lot of commitment. Even apart from marriage, I believe that a couple
who says they have a lifetime commitment together is telling you something
important about a strong level of intention and commitment. Those things all signal
commitment. Cohabitation, per se, very often does not. (As a very complex but
important aside, I do think the socioeconomic context of some couples makes
marriage nearly impossible economically; for some of these couples, I believe cohabitation
can be a marker of a higher level of commitment.)
Practically
speaking, what do Guzzo’s findings tell us? First, taken with the growing body
of research in this area, I think we are seeing cohabitation headed toward
becoming more ambiguous than ever regarding commitment. Actually, that’s not
quite right. Cohabitation seems to be moving toward being, unambiguously, a form
of dating with no implications about the odds of marrying. Second, these
societal changes make it more important than ever for people who do want to succeed
in marriage to be careful about how their romantic relationships before
marriage unfold.
If
you want to marry, be careful about cohabitation. Sure, more and more people
are cohabiting, but it’s also less likely than ever to lead to marriage. In
fact, people are increasingly cohabiting in ways that are associated with
greater risks to the aspiration of marital success. If you are aiming for marriage,
aim for a solid choice in a partner and then look to form a public, mutual
promise to marry. While all couples may be more likely to break up before
marriage now than in the past, look toward something that really signals
commitment to figure out whether you and a partner have what it takes to go the
distance.
Addendum 7-3-2016. The Guzzo paper is very complicated and, since I know few will brave it, I wanted to add a few more quotes from it. She covers various alternative explanations and implications of the trends that are beyond a blog article, but these quotes may add more to your understanding of what she's showing. It is a complex but pretty amazing paper.
As I suggested at the start of this article, then, the present results confirm the notion that marriage has become less a part of the cohabitation process over time. (p. 839)
These results—that cohabiting unions, even those begun with engagement, are more likely to dissolve and less likely to transition to marriage over time even after accounting for compositional shifts—is all the more troubling because it suggests that young adults are having trouble realizing their desires and intentions to form more permanent and stable unions, particularly marriages. (p. 840)
[ii] See
study by Lichter,
Turner, & Sassler (2010); see also a blogpost I wrote about “Cohabidating.”
[iii] See this news story; see also this document from the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned
Pregnancy.
[iv] For
example: Sheela Kennedy and Larry Bumpass, “Cohabitation and Trends in the
Structure and Stability of Children’s Family Lives” (paper presented at
Population Association of America Meeting, Washington, DC, 2011).
