By Scott M. Stanley and Galena K. Rhoades
A “Majority
of Americans Now Believe in Cohabitation.” That’s the headline and
conclusion from a national survey conducted by the Barna Group.[i]
They surveyed 1097 adults in April 2016, finding that 65 percent of Americans now
approve of cohabiting prior to tying the knot, while 35 percent do not.[ii]
Given that nearly 70 percent of Americans marrying today will cohabit before getting
married,[iii]
these findings are not too surprising.
The Barna Group also found that 84 percent of those who
support premarital cohabitation do so because it provides a test of compatibility
prior to marrying. That will be our main focus in this piece, but first, here
are some other findings from the report:
- Millennials are more likely (72 percent) to endorse cohabitation prior to marriage than the older generation (36 percent).
- Those identifying as liberal are more likely (86 percent) to endorse cohabitation prior to marriage than those identifying as conservative (37 percent).
- Those identifying as more religious, particularly those who report being practicing Christians, are the least likely (41 percent) to endorse cohabiting before marriage while those reporting no faith at all are the most likely to embrace the practice (88 percent).
The survey also asked about behavior, finding that 57
percent of those surveyed had cohabited with a partner outside of marriage at
some point. Further, and entirely consistent with what we might expect, older,
more conservative, and more traditionally religious respondents were the least
likely to report a history of cohabiting compared to the rest of the sample.
The embrace of cohabitation before marriage is sweeping. As
Roxanne Stone, editor-in-chief for the Barna Group, explained, “Even a growing
number of parents—nearly half of Gen-Xers and Boomers, and more than half of
Millennials—want and expect their children to live with a significant other
before getting married.”
Cohabitation is here in a big way.
Reasons Why People
Believe Cohabitation is Good
The Barna Group found that 84 percent of those who approve
of cohabiting before marriage said that it was valuable for testing
compatibility. This has been the dominant belief of young adults for 20 years or
more. By way of comparison, in a detailed report on attitudes related to family
in 2001, sociologists Arland Thornton and Linda Young-DeMarco[iv]
(citing findings from the Monitoring the Future project at the University of
Michigan) noted that, by the late 1990s, more than three-fifths of high school
students in the U.S. endorsed this sentiment: “It is usually a good idea for a
couple to live together before getting married in order to find out whether
they really get along.’’ Simply put, most young people believe this.
The Barna Group found that other reasons for valuing
premarital cohabitation paled in comparison to testing, with the reason that “it’s
convenient/practical” coming in at 9 percent and “cheap rent” coming in at 5
percent (2 percent chose “other).
Reasons Cohabiters
Give for (Actually) Moving In Together
From 2007 to 2012, we followed a national sample of 1294
unmarried young adults (ages 18 to 34) who were in serious romantic
relationships, surveying them about their personal lives and relationships for
11 waves.[v]
This is the Relationship Development Study (RDS), and the sample well
represents Americans in that age range.
At the first time point in this longitudinal study, we asked
people if they were cohabiting and, if so, their reasons for doing so. Based on
prior work in this area,[vi]
we gave people six options for ranking their reasons for moving in with their
partners[vii]
(displayed in the accompanying chart). Although the Barna Group showed that
most people who endorse cohabiting before marriage believe it is a good idea
because it provides a good test of compatibility, that’s not the most common
reason people give for actually moving in
together.
As you can see, we found that the number one reason both
males and females gave for moving in together was to spend more time with their
partners. Convenience was the second most strongly-endorsed reason, followed by
wanting to take a step-up in commitment.[viii]
Convenience would include the types of financial benefits noted in the Barna Group
report. In our sample, men and women strongly diverged in two categories. Women
were more likely than men to say they cohabited because they had a child to
raise (13 percent vs. 6.6 percent) whereas men were more likely than women to
say they cohabited to test the relationship (10 percent vs. 4.5 percent).
Is Cohabiting a Good
Test of a Relationship?
We (particularly Galena) began carefully studying reasons
people have for cohabiting around 2005 as part of a range of efforts to study cohabitation
and why it was not typically associated with the improved outcomes in marriage
that most people expect. Using an earlier sample of cohabiters (not the
national and more representative sample we have in the RDS), we gathered
in-depth quantitative data from 120 couples, and we looked at reasons people
gave for cohabiting and what those reasons were associated with (Rhoades, Stanley,
& Markman, 2009[ix]).
In that data set, the top three reasons people gave for
cohabiting were to spend more time together (61 percent), financial convenience
(19 percent), and to test the relationship (14 percent). These findings
parallel those we obtained in the same sample of that report using a more
sophisticated scale of reasons for cohabitation that we used in more complex analyses
of what is associated with various reasons people hold for cohabiting.
Women who reported cohabiting for reasons of convenience
were more likely to report lower level of confidence in their relationships,
less commitment, and higher levels of negative dynamics with their partners.
Those findings are consistent with the fact that, for some, cohabitation is
something driven by perceived and real necessities. Some people really do have
poorer options, and they are more likely to end up in difficult relationships
where cohabitation probably would not otherwise have been their first choice,
at least with “this” partner.
What about testing? As with our national data set, men were
more likely than their partners (all women) to report cohabiting in order to
test the relationship. We examined the personal and relationship
characteristics of both men and women who reported testing, and found that:
- “For men, higher levels of depressive symptoms, generalized anxiety symptoms, difficulty depending on others, and anxiety about abandonment were significantly associated with higher scores on testing.” (p. 247)
- “For women, . . . greater abandonment anxiety was significantly associated with higher testing scores.” (p. 247)
- “For both men and women, greater negative interaction and psychological aggression and lower relationship confidence and adjustment were significantly associated with higher scores on the testing subscale. For men only, greater physical aggression and lower levels of dedication were significantly associated with testing the relationship.”
These findings suggest that cohabiting to test a
relationship is associated with many kinds of negatives. Does that mean that
cohabitation causes those negatives? Probably not. There is a lot more evidence
that those negatives were largely there before cohabiting.
We think of these findings this way. If you are considering whether
or not you should move in with someone to test the relationships, it’s likely
not the wisest thing you could do. In fact, it seems to us that many people who
are thinking about testing their relationship by cohabiting already know, on
some level, what the grade of that test may be; they are hoping that the answer
looks better over time.
Even cohabiting to spend more time together may not be
without risk. We’ve argued elsewhere and often—with a lot of empirical evidence
in many published studies—that the number one thing people miss about the risk
of cohabiting is that it makes it harder to break up. Cohabiting relationships
break up all the time, and increasingly so,[x]
but the relative difference is the point. All other things being the same, a couple
who is cohabiting will have a harder time breaking up than a couple who is only
dating. We think that’s a big deal.
If you want to read more about this issue, what we call “the
inertia of cohabitation,” you can read more here
and here
and here.
Or, see our 4-minute video on the subject: Relationship DUI.
What’s the point? Simple, actually. Because many people
cohabit before even having mutual clarity about commitment, such as through
engagement or marriage, some people end up staying in relationships, including
on into marriage, that they otherwise would have left behind.[xi]
Essentially, many people slide into situations that make it harder to end a
relationship before they have made a clear decision about what is best. The
situation looks quite a bit different for those who have strongly clarified
mutual commitment to the future before moving in together, such as by being
engaged or even—gasp—being married.
Cohabitation Fails the
Test
There are a lot better ways to test a relationship than to
do something that makes it harder to break up before you’ve really figured it
all out. Take a relationship education course (i.e., some kind of premarital preparation
before you even get engaged), talk about what a future together would look like,
and see if you are compatible by dating. Take the time to see your partner in a
lot of different social settings.
Ever take any college classes? If so, you know that people
sometimes sign up for a class and then decide, part way in, that it’s not for
them and they drop the class. But some people figure it out too late and cannot
drop the class or, at best, drop it late and lose their money.
It’s easy to slide into cohabitation without even a serious
discussion or decision and then get stuck. When it comes to moving in together
before marriage, some people may find that they are failing in a class that has
become too hard to drop.
Scott M. Stanley is a research professor at the University
of Denver. Galena K. Rhoades is a research associate professor at the
University of Denver.
[i] The Barna Group specializes in survey work that is
often used by those in religious ministry. As for the methods used by the Barna
Group, they seem reasonable to us and the findings are entirely consistent with
what we know in this field. However, we have not examined the specific
procedures beyond what is stated in their report, where they note: “The study
on which these findings are based was conducted via online survey from April 7
to April 14, 2016. A total of 1,097 interviews were conducted. The sample error
is plus or minus 2.8 percentage points at 95-percent confidence level. The
completion rate was 85%.”
[ii]
In creating their report, the Barna Group combined those who either strongly or
somewhat agree into one group and those who either somewhat or strongly
disagree into the other.
[iii] Manning, W. D.
(2013). Trends in cohabitation: Twenty
years of change, 1987-2010 (FP-13-12). National Center for Family &
Marriage Research. Retrieved from https://www.bgsu.edu/content/dam/BGSU/college-of-arts-and-sciences/NCFMR/documents/FP/FP-13-12.pdf; See also
Kennedy, S., & Bumpass, L. (2008). Cohabitation and
children's living arrangements: New estimates from the United States. Demographic Research, 19(47), 1663-1692.
[iv] Thornton, A., &
Young-DeMarco, L. (2001). Four decades of trends in
attitudes toward family issues in the United States: The 1960s through the
1990s. Journal of Marriage and Family, 63(4),
1009-1037. doi:10.1111/j.1741-3737.2001.01009.x
[v] You can find out more about the
sample and the methods in these articles: Rhoades, G. K., Stanley, S. M., and
Markman, H. J. (2010). Should I stay or should I go?
Predicting dating relationship stability from four aspects of commitment. Journal of Family Psychology, 24(5), 543-550.; Rhoades, G. K.,
Stanley, S. M., and Markman, H. J. (2012). The impact of the transition to
cohabitation on relationship functioning: Cross-sectional and longitudinal
findings. Journal of Family Psychology, 26(3),
348-358.
[vi] We also gave people the option
of saying they moved in together because they did not believe in marriage,
which was endorsed by less than 1 percent of the respondents.
[vii] These
particular findings from our national sample have not, as yet, been published.
[viii]
This was actually listed as “inconvenient to live apart” in the survey
[ix] Rhoades, G.
K., Stanley, S. M., & Markman, H. J. (2009). Couples'
reasons for cohabitation: Associations with individual well-being and
relationship quality. Journal of Family
Issues, 30, 233 - 258. doi: 10.1177/0192513X08324388
[x]
Guzzo, K. B. (2014). Trends
in cohabitation outcomes: Compositional changes and engagement among
never-married young adults. Journal
of Marriage and Family, 76, 826 -842. DOI: 10.1111/jomf.12123
[xi]
Stanley, S. M., Rhoades, G. K., and Markman, H. J. (2006). Sliding
vs. Deciding: Inertia and the premarital cohabitation effect. Family Relations, 55, 499-509.; You can
read a full text version of this paper here.
