The Role of Cohabitation in Declining Rates of Marriage

The Role of Cohabitation in Declining Rates of Marriage
Author(s): Larry L. Bumpass, James A. Sweet and Andrew Cherlin

Source: Journal of Marriage and Family, Vol. 53, No. 4 (Nov., 1991), pp. 913-927
Published by: National Council on Family Relations
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LARRYL. BUMPASS
ANDJAMES
A. SWEET University of Wisconsin-Madison
ANDREWCHERLIN Johns Hopkins University*
The Role of Cohabitation in

Declining Rates of Marriage
Sharp declines in both first marriage rates and

rates of remarriage have been largely offset by increasing cohabitation. The increase in the proportion of unmarriedyoung people should not be interpreted as an increase in "singlehood" as traditionally regarded: young people are setting up
housekeeping with partners of the opposite sex at
almost as early an age as they did before marriage
rates declined. The characteristics of cohabiting
couples are documented here, including the role
of the least educated in leading this trend, and the
presence of children with 40% of the couples.
While most cohabitors expect to marry their partner, there is a substantial proportion who disagree
about marriage, and a high proportion are concerned about the stability of their relationship.
Thus the picture that is emerging is that cohabitation is very much afamily status, but one in which
levels of certainty about the relationship are lower
than in marriage.
the period from 1945 to 1965. It is also well

knownthat the numberof cohabitingcoupleshas
increasedgreatlysince about 1970. It is the connection between these two developments that we
address in this analysis. In particular, we compare
trends in marriage and remarriage to trends in
these variables when cohabitation is included, and
examine education differences in the rise of cohabitation. We then document the characteristics
of cohabiting couples in terms of the duration of
the union, presence of children, perceived stability, marriage plans, and opinions about cohabitation. Finally, we analyze several marriage-related
attitude items among all unmarried persons under
age 35.
Limiteddataexist for a few othercountrieson

the relationshipbetween union formation and
maritalformation.In France,for example,a 1985
surveyof adults from 18 to 44 years of age collected a history of their unions, including both
marriagesand periodsof livingwitha partneras a

It is by now well known that recent cohorts of
young adultsin the UnitedStatesand most other
Western nations have been postponing marriage
relativeto the cohorts that enteredadulthoodin

Center for Demography and Ecology, 4412 Social Science
Building, 1180 Observatory Drive, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706-1393.
*Department of Sociology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218.
couple (Leridon and Villeneuve-Gokalp, 1989).
The resultsshoweda patternof sharpincreasesin

premaritalcohabitation that began, as in the
United States, in about 1970. Among all evermarriedpersonsaged34 or youngerin 1985,more
than 40% reported a premarital cohabitation,
compared to only about 20% among earlier cohorts.
As a consequence of this increased cohabitation in France, the proportion of all young adults
who had ever lived in a union, married or non-
Journal of Marriage and the Family 53 (November 1991): 913-927

913
Journal of Marriage and the Family
914
married,remainednearlyconstant.Thatis to say,
the fall in the proportionever marriedamong
young adultswas compensatedby the increasein
the proportionwho had evercohabited.The first
experienceof livingin a union was not occurring
at a laterage, on average,althoughthe firstunion
increasinglywas a nonmaritalone. After about
1981 or 1982, however, the situation changed.
From that point, the proportionever marriedfell
morerapidlyand wasnot fullycompensatedby an
increasein cohabitation,so that the proportion
experiencinga first union by a givenage declined
substantially.Similarresults have recentlybeen
reported for Sweden (Hoem and Rennermalm,
1982),Australia(Bracherand Santow, 1988),and
Canada(Rao, 1990).
Until recently there have not been adequate
datafor an assessmentof the relationshipbetween
changingmarriageand cohabitationin the United
States. Fortunately,we are now able to do this
with the recentlycompletedNational Surveyof
Familiesand Households(NSFH).
1. Detailedmeasurementof cohabitationhistories in the context of marriage and separation

histories.
2. A sequence on attitudes relating to marriage
and cohabitationaskedof never-married

and previously marriedrespondentsunderage 35.
3. A seriesof questionsconcerningthe nature
and qualityof the relationshipbetweenpartnersin
both marriedand cohabitingcouples.
4. A self-administeredinterview with the
spouse or partnerof the main respondent.
5. A few questions relating to attitudes toward
marriageand cohabitationasked of all respondents.

While the presentstudyis only exploratory,it
drawson each of theseinitiativesto provideinformation on the relationshipbetweencohabitation
and marriagein the United States. We begin by
examiningmarriageand cohabitationhistoriesto
replicate the type of analysis noted earlier for
Franceand Australia.
MARITAL AND NONMARITAL UNION FORMATION
THENATIONAL
SURVEYOF
FAMILIES
ANDHOUSEHOLDS
The NSFH is a national sample survey of 13,017
respondents, conducted in 1987-88. In addition to
a main sample of 9,643 persons aged 19 and over,
we oversampled certain population subgroups.
The oversample included households containing
single-parent families, stepfamilies, recently married couples, cohabiting couples, blacks, Chicanos, or Puerto Ricans. In each selected household, a randomly selected adult was interviewed.
A self-administered form was also filled out by
the spouse (or cohabiting partner), and by a

householderin casesin whichthe primaryrespondent was a relativeof the householder(suchas an
adult child in a parent's household or an elderly
parent in a child's household). Interviewsaveraged about one hour and forty minutes in length.
The NSFH was designed to provide detailed in-
formationon manyaspectsof familylife in order

to permit analyses of relationships among various
family domains (see Sweet, Bumpass,and Call,

1988).Becauseof the importanceof cohabitation
for understandingthe changingmeaningof marital unions, we devoted considerableattentionto
the relationshipsbetweencohabitationand marriage, includingthe followingcomponents:
The Formation of First Unions
In the United States, the proportionof persons

who lived with a partnerbefore marryingfor the
first time increasedfrom 11% around1970(Bumpass and Sweet, 1989a)to nearlyhalf for recent
first marriages(Bumpass,1990).Figures1 and 2
illustrate(for malesand females,respectively)the
effect of cohabitation in offsetting the decline in
marriage rates. The oldest of these cohorts, aged
40-44 at interview, reached age 20 during the
mid-1960s; the most recent reached age 20 in the
mid-1980s. Because of the low levels of cohabitation for the oldest cohorts, there is little difference
between the proportions ever married and the
proportions ever in a union. For these cohorts,
age at marriage was a reasonable indicator of age
at first union. This is clearly no longer so. In the
absence of cohabitation, there would have been a
substantial decline in the proportions setting up
housekeepingbefore ages 20 and 25. However,

when firstcohabitationis includedwith firstmarriage, we find only a very slight declinein age at
first union over these cohorts.
Note that, for women, the proportionexperiencinga union before age 20 did not declineuntil
the cohortscenteredon 1960reachedadulthoodwhichwasin the 1980s.Eventhen, the declinewas

915
Cohabitation and Declining Rates of Marriage
AND PERCENTAGE IN UNION,
FIGURE 1. PERCENTAGE MARRIED,
BEFORE AGES
20 AND 25:
MALES
80-
60
C
c
40
LEGEND
Age 20 EverMarried
"70
20 EverMarried
or Cohabited
----Age
20---C
a)
Age 25 EverMarried
Age 25 EverMarried
or Cohabited
0
"
1945
1955
1950
1960
1965
BirthCohort
slight, and the proportionexperiencinga union

before age 25 has yet to decline substantially.
These results are similarto the aforementioned
findings from France, in which declines in the
proportionsexperiencinga union did not occur
until the early 1980s-appearing most in unions
before age 25 among men and in unions before
age 20 amongwomen.
In orderto try to estimatethe scale of the ef-
fect of cohabitationin offsetting marriagedeclines, we have organizedthe data in Table 1 to

comparethe proportionsmarriedat ages 20 and
25 for the cohortsreachingthese ages in 1970and
in 1985.(For example,personsaged 35-39 at survey reachedage 20 around 1970, whereasthose
aged 20-24 at survey reached this age around
1985.) The trends are shown in Table 1 by sex,
race, and educationalattainment.
FIGURE 2. PERCENTAGE MARRIED, AND PERCENTAGE IN UNION,
BEFORE AGES
20
AND 25: FEMALES
100
--
80 --
14
60O
LEGEND
a
-
Age 20 EverMarried
Age 20 EverMarried
Cohabited
co
20or
c
Age 25 EverMarried
CL
1945
1950
1955
1960
BirthCohort

1965
Age 25 EverMarried
or Cohabited
916
TABLE 1. RELATIVE CHANGE IN THE PROPORTIONS EVER MARRIED AND EVER IN UNION BY
AGES20 AND25: COHORTS

REACHING
THESE
AGESAROUND1970AND1985
Category
Percentage
Ever Married
1970 1985 70 Change
Panel A: Before Age 20a

27% 14%
-49%
Total
18
5
Males
-72
22
Females
35
-38
-46
Whites
28
15
24
Blacks
6
-75
Education
0-11 years
43
30
-29
12 years
17
42
-60
14
5
-62
College
Panel B: Before Age 25b
72% 55%
Total
-24%
65
43
Males
-34
-17
Females
79
66
76
58
Whites
-23
61
Blacks
37
-40
Education
0-11 years
72
58
-19
12 years
80
62
-23
-27
66
48
College
aCohorts aged 35-39 and 20-24 at survey.
bCohorts aged 25-29 and 40-44 at survey.
The first three columns of this table show the

well-known sharp decline in percentages married.
The upper half of the table concerns marriage
before age 20. The proportion who married as
teenagers reached a 20th-century high in the 1950s
and has declined markedly and steadily since
(Cherlin, 1981; Sweet and Bumpass, 1987). Teenage marriage declined an average of 50% over
these cohorts. Among males, blacks, and the college-educated, teenage marriages declined by twothirds to three-quarters, and have nearly disappeared.
The sharp swings in marriage timing in the
postwar period have been most pronounced in the
20-24 age group, making the estimates in the
lower half of the table particularly appropriate indicators of trends in the timing of first marriage.
These proportions have also fallen substantially-marriage before age 25 was 24% lower among the
most recent cohort than among those reaching
this age around 1970. Nonetheless, the 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.
We turn next to columns four, five, and six,
which present information on the percentage of
Percentage
Ever in Union
1970 1985 % Change
29%
21
38
30
28
23%
13
33
25
15
-20%
-38
-11
-15
-53
47
44
16
49
28
10
4
-37
-39
75% 69%
59
69
78
82
71
78
66
61
78
82
69
76
74
62
0 Change Married
-% Change Unioned
07 Change Married
59%
47
71
67
29
114
38
37
-8%
-14
-4
-9
-7
67%
59
76
61
83
-3
-10
-10
84
57
63
respondents who had ever been in a union before

age 20 or 25, where "union" includes both marriages and cohabiting unions. The major finding is
that the decline in having lived in a marriage-like
relationship by a given age is substantially less
than the decline in marriage experience by that
age. Whereas the percentage ever married before
age 20 declined 49% between 1970 and 1985, the
percentage ever in union before age 20 declined by
just 20070.And the gap is even smaller in experience by age 25: in 1970, 75% of all young adults
had been in a union before this age; whereas in
1985, 69% had been in a union-a rather modest
drop of six percentage points.
The last column provides 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 instance, in the
first row, the proportion ever married before age
20 declined by 49%, while the proportion ever in
union before age 20 declined by only 20%, indicating that cohabitation compensated for 59%
(49-20/49) of the decline in marriage. From 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, and the less educated more than the better

917
TABLE 2. RELATIVE CHANGE IN THE NUMBER OF YEARS IN MARRIAGE, AND NUMBER OF YEARS IN A
UNION, BEFORE AGE 25: COHORTS REACHING THESE AGES AROUND 1970 AND 1985
Category
Total
Males
Females
Whites
Blacks
Education
0-11 years
12 years
College
Mean Number of Years before Age 25

Married
In Any Union
1970 1985 % Change
1970 1985 70Change
2.90 2.05
-29%
-15%
3.05 2.59
2.15 1.37
-36
-19
2.27 1.84
-28
-16
3.68 2.63
3.83 3.23
-30
-17
2.97 2.08
3.10 2.56
2.43 1.36
-44
-17
2.60 2.17
3.89
3.32
2.24
3.08
2.52
1.42
-21
-24
-37
educated.
About 40% of cohabiting unions in the United
States break up without the couple getting married, and this tends to occur rather quickly. By
about one and one-half years, half of cohabiting
couples have either married or broken up (Bumpass and Sweet, 1989a). Consequently, the number of years in a union before age 25 may have declined even when the experience of a union by that
age has remained relatively stable. Table 2 shows
the number of years in marriage and number of
years in any union before age 25. There was a
29% decline in the number of years in marriage
before age 25, compared to the 15% decline in the
number of years ever in a union by this age. Part
of this, of course, reflects the decline in years married by age 25 as a consequence of later marriage
among those who married before this age, and
part also reflects the decreased stability of marital
unions. However, it is also 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% as compared to 67%). Nonetheless, the
increase in young adult years spent "single" is only about half that suggested by declining marriage
rates.
Though the decline in number of years married
before age 25 was greater among blacks, there was
an identical 17% decline for both blacks and
whites in the number of years in a union before
that age.
In both Tables 1 and 2, it is clear that cohabitation has compensated for declining marriage least
among persons who have attended college. For
example, it offsets 84% of the decline in marriages before age 25 among persons not completing
high school, compared to 63% of this decline
4.32
3.33
2.34
3.87
3.11
1.86
-10
-07
-21
-% Change Union/
% Change Married
48%
47
43
43
61
52
71
43
among those who attended college. This is contrary to the image of cohabitation as a college student phenomenon. The popular treatment of cohabitation has focused on college graduates or
college students in urban areas-rather than on
the consensual unions that were more common
among the lower class. Thus there was the impression that cohabitation was an innovation of college students in the 1960s, which then spread during the 1970s and 1980s to the rest of the population. Taking into account "common-law" marriages in the lower class, we might expect that cohabitation was rare outside the lower class before
it was adopted by well-educated young adults in
large metropolitan areas and then diffused widely
across the middle and working classes. Evidence
relating to this model has been slim. One Swedish
study reports, to the contrary, that rates of consensual union formation were consistently higher
among young working-class women than among
young women from the bourgeoisie across birth
cohorts, and consistently higher among nonstudents than among students (Hoem, 1986). The
trends by education in Figure 3 speak directly to
this issue. In order to control for possibly confounding compositional changes over cohorts, the
data graphed in this figure have been adjusted for
age at marriage and race.
This figure does not support the diffusion
model. Rather, it indicates that among the birth
cohorts of the 1930s-who reached their midtwenties in the late 1950s-cohabitation in young
adulthood was restricted to a small minority in the
lower educational groups. And it is among these
same groups that the rise in cohabitation began in
the late 1950s. By the 1960s, when the birth cohorts of the 1940s entered adulthood, the rise was

918
Journalof Marriageand theFamily

FIGURE 3. PERCENTAGE COHABITING BEFORE AGE 25, BY EDUCATION
60
50
40
30
0
0
20
-- LEGEND
/0-11
10/
YEARS
12 YEARS
COL4+
1950
1955
COL1-3
0-
o
1930
1935
. -
...
1940
1945
1960
Midpointof 5 YearBirthCohort
under way among all groups. Then there was an

acceleration in the 1970s of the rate of growth of
cohabitation among nearly all educational
groups. Finally, among the cohorts who have
most recently reached their mid-twenties, the
rapid growth continued for those with 12 years of
school or less but slowed or stopped among those
with one or more years of college.
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. It seems likely that college students
attracted the attention of the media and academics because they were the most visible component of a widespread phenomenon. College
graduates have been not the innovators in the
spread of cohabitation, but rather the imitators.
This leaves more unsettled than ever the question
of just why the transformation of union formation occurred. The inverse relationship with education does suggest, however, that one component may be the substitution of cohabitation for
marriage in the early years of a union when there
are economic constraints. We will see some related evidence on this point subsequently.
PostmaritalUnionFormation
Because of our high levels of marital instability,
large proportions of the population experience
separation or divorce. At the same time, rates of
remarriage have fallen rapidly. We have seen that
cohabitation has offset much of the decline in first
marriage rates; to what extent has it also compensated for declining rates of remarriage?
We know that cohabitation is even more common among separated and divorced persons than
among the never married. Sixty percent of persons
who remarriedbetween 1980 and 1987 lived with a
partner before the remarriage-46% only with the
person they then married and 14% with someone
else (Bumpass and Sweet, 1989a). Table 3 presents
the proportion remarrying, and the proportion
forming any union, within five years of separation
for cohorts that separated from 1963 to 1967 and
from 1977 to 1981 (cohorts that had been separated for five years around 1979 and 1984, respectively). Although the proportion marrying
within five years of separation declined 16% between 1970 and the early 1980s, the proportion
who had formed a new union within five years actually increased slightly. Hence, cohabitation has
compensated fully for the fall in remarriage.
There has been no decline in the pace of union
formation following marital dissolution, although

919
TABLE3. RELATIVECHANGEIN THE PROPORTIONSEVER REMARRIEDAND

EVER IN A UNION WITHINFIVE YEARS AFTERMARITALSEPARATION:
SEPARATIONCOHORTSREACHINGFIVE YEARS DURATIONAROUND 1970 AND 1984
Percentage Remarried
within Five Years
1970a 1984b %7o
Change
Category
Total
Males
Females
49%
54
46
42%
45
38
Percentage in Union
within Five Years
1970a 1984b 07 Change
-16%
-17
-16
58
67
52
62
70
56
7%
4
8
aPersons separated 1963-67.

bPersons separated 1977-81.
an increasing proportion of these unions are nonmarital.

OFCOHABITORS
CHARACTERISTICS
As outlined earlier, the NSFH provides a wealth
of data on cohabiting couples that allow comparisons to married couples on the one hand and to
other unmarried persons on the other. In this section we explore some preliminary clues about the
nature of cohabiting relationships.
riage rates to be lower among the previously married because of their older age distribution.
Whether there is a further disinclination to marry
associated with having been previously married is
a topic that warrants further examination, and
one on which we will see more evidence subsequently.
The common image of cohabiting couples as
college students, or at least young couples, does
not usually include a family with children. Yet, 4
of every 10 such couples have children present
(Table 5). This proportion is one-third among the
Duration and Presence of Children

We have already noted that cohabitation tends to
be a very short-lived state. Only about 1 out of 10
remain cohabiting after five years without either
marrying or breaking up. Nonetheless, this does
not mean that there are few cohabitations of long
durationat any point in time. Longercohabitations tend to "accumulate"in the population,so

there are more in the cross-section than we might
TABLE 5. PRESENCE OF CHILDREN IN HOUSEHOLD OF

COHABITATING RESPONDENTS, BY WHETHER
RESPONDENT WAS EVER MARRIED
Children
No children
Couple's
One partner's
Total
Yes
Ever Married
No
53%
7
39
100
65 %o
16
22
100
Total
60%
12
27
100
expect from a cohort perspective.As we can see

from Table 4, 20% of cohabiting couples have
lived together for five or more years. The duration
of cohabiting unions is longer among previously
married persons, among whom only 30% began
living together in the last year, compared to 39%
among the never-married. We would expect marTABLE4. DURATIONOF COHABITATION,BY
WHETHER RESPONDENT WAS EVER MARRIED
Duration
Less than 1 year
1-1.9 years
2-2.9 years
3-3.9 years
4-4.9 years
5 + years
Total
Yes
30%
17
12
9
9
23
100
Ever Married
No
39%
19
11
8
5
17
100
Total
36%o
18
11
8
7
20
100
never-married and almost half among the previously married. One-sixth of never-married cohabiting couples have a child that was born since
they began living together. As we noted in an earlier analysis of children's single-parent experience,
this represents a significant component of unmarried births (about a quarter) that are not born into
single-parent households (Bumpass and Sweet,
1989a).
Further, the children in cohabiting households
are not all young children. In Table 6 we see that
one-quarter of the households with children have
children age 10 or older, mostly living with previously married parents. In thinking about the
meaning of cohabitation and the dynamics of
cohabiting households, it is critical to keep in

920
mind that issues of parentingand stepparenting late to differencesand similaritiesbetween coare very much a part of the picture.
habitationandmarriage.One suchsequencewasa
series of questions concerning how important
various factors are in thinkingabout whetheror
Attitudes toward Cohabitation
not to live with someone withoutbeing married.
We turn now to severalattitudinalitems thatre- Responseswere on a 7-point scale rangingfrom
"not at all important" to "very important."
7 shows the percentageof cohabitorswho
Table
TABLE 6. AGE OF YOUNGEST CHILD IN HOUSEHOLD OF
COHABITATING RESPONDENTS, BY WHETHER
respondedin the two categoriesat each end of the
scale.
Ever Married
The only item that was regardedas "imporYes
No
Total
Children
tant" by a majority of the respondents was
54%
64%
No children
"couples can be sure they are compatiblebefore
60%0
21
16
24
0-4
A quarterof the respondentsreported
marriage."
7
10
14
5-9
that
opportunityto "share living expenses"was
10
16
5
10-17
100
100
100
Total
important.
TABLE
7.
VIEWS ON REASONS FOR AND AGAINST COHABITATION: COHABITORS UNDER AGE 35
Reasons why a person might WANT to live with someone of the opposite sex without being married.
How important is each reason to YOU?
Not Important
Important
Male
Female
Male
Female
Response
It requires less personal commitment than marriage.
46%
48%
18%
14%
It is more sexually satisfying than dating.
17
18
49
59
It makes it possible to share living expenses.
26
28
32
29
It requires less sexual faithfulness than marriage.
10
12
64
69
51
56
18
16
Couples can be sure they are compatible before marriage.
It allows each partner to be more independent than marriage.
17
19
36
41
Reasons why a person might NOT want to live with someone of the opposite sex without being married.
How important is each reason to YOU?
Not Important
Important
Male
Female
Male
Female
Response
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
g.
It is emotionally risky.
My friends disapprove.
My parents disapprove.
It is morally wrong.
It is financially risky.
It requires more personal commitment than dating.
It requires more sexual faithfulness than dating.
13%
4
8
6
7
19
24
18%
4
11
9
7
25
28
47%
84
71
75
64
43
42
44%
82
61
60
55
40
43
TABLE 8. VIEWS ON How BEING MARRIED WOULD CHANGE THEIR LIFE:

COHABITORS UNDER AGE 35
Better
Same
Worse
Male Female
Male Female
Male Female
Aspect of Life
a. Standard of living
19
18
74
76
7
6
b. Economic security
24
32
67
61
9
7
c. Overall happiness
30
36
57
57
13
7
d. Freedom to do what you want
11
9
59
74
30
17
Economic
e.
10
75
14
78
11
12
independence
f. Sex life
22
14
68
81
10
5
with
others
14
12
73
80
13
6
g. Friendships
h Relations with parents
22
24
71
72
7
4
28
38
i Emotional security
63
57
9
5
Note: Cohabiting respondents age 35 and younger were asked, "How do you think your life might be different if
you were married now?" A 5-point scale was used for responses. The "better" category above includes "somewhat
better" and "much better." "Worse" includes "somewhat worse" and "much worse."

Though the idea of cohabitationas a testing

groundfor marriageincludesan explicittentativeness aboutsuch relationships,issuesof lowerpersonal commitmentor greaterpersonalindependenceare not reportedas importantby verylarge
proportions(only about 15%to 20%). Thesecohabitingcouples may be rationalizingtheir currentstatus,but thereis verylittleconcernwithcohabitationbeing a moralissue or with the disapprovalof parentsand friends.
How Married Life Would Be Different
Cohabitorswereasked, "How do you thinkyour

life wouldbe differentif you weremarriednow?"
Therewerefive responsecategories,rangingfrom
"muchworse" to "muchbetter." Table8 shows
the percentageof cohabitingmen and womenresponding in the two "better" and the two
"worse" categoriesto each of these items.
The strikingthingaboutthesemeasuresis that
the majorityresponsecategoryfor each of these
itemsis that thingswouldnot change,that is, that
they wouldbe "the same." Whendifferencesare
perceived,with few exceptions,more of the cohabitors believe that each of these conditions
would improve rather than deteriorateif they
were married.The most importantexceptionis
that nearlya thirdof men, but only about a sixth
of the women, reportthat their "freedomto do
whattheywant"wouldbe worseif theyweremarried. Apparently,this item capturesan elementof
concernwith independencethat is not tappedby
the measureson the importanceof variousconsiderationsin Table 7.
A fairly sizable proportionof cohabitingrespondents, especially women, report that their
economic securityand emotionalsecuritywould
be betterif they were married.
A third of the respondentssay that their
overall happiness would improve if they were
marriednow; a somewhathigherproportionof
womenthan men reportthis. The meaningof this
responseis not clear.To the extentthat the couple
is not marriedbecause of some constraint(employmentinstabilityor low income,an impending
move associatedwith finishingschool, or the fact
that one of the partnersis not yet divorcedfroma
previousmarriage),it may be that it is not the
marriageitself that would make the person happier, but the change in conditions that would
make marriagepossible.
921
Perceived Stability
While we do not have much evidenceyet on the

reasons, we know that cohabiting unions are
much less stable than those that being as marriages (Balakrishnan, Rao, Lapierre-Adamcyk,
and Krotki, 1987; Bennett, Blanc, and Bloom,
1988; Booth and Johnson, 1988). Forty percent
will disruptbefore marriage,and marriagesthat
are precededby living togetherhave 50% higher
disruptionrates than marriageswithoutpremarital cohabitation (Bumpass and Sweet, 1989b).
Severalfactorsmay be at work. On the one hand,
it may just be that personswho are willingto cohabit are less traditionalin their family values,
and hence, at the same level of maritalunhappiness, more likely to acceptdivorceas a solution
(Booth and Johnson, 1988).For example,among
unions of 10 or feweryears duration,cohabitors
are much less likely to agreethat "Marriageis a
lifetime relationshipand should never be ended
except under extremecircumstances."Fifty-five
percent agree with this statement, comparedto
71% amongmarriedpersons,net of durationand
age differences.
It may also be that cohabitingunions are less
well adjusted,otherthingsbeingequal,eitheras a
causeor as a consequenceof cohabitation.On the
one hand, there may well be a selection into
cohabitation of persons more tentative about
theirrelationship.Indeed,whilesomemaybe testing whether they should marry their partner,
others may have no intention of marryingthis
partner.Some, perhapsbecauseof experiencesin
their first marriageor personalproblemsof one
sort or another, may not want to marry ever
again.And, for those for whomcohabitationmay
be a substitutefor marriagebecauseof delaying
circumstances,whetherfinancialor a still existing
marriageto someone else, those circumstances
mayhavea negativeimpacton adjustment.At the
sametime, it is at leastplausiblethat cohabitation
TABLE9. MARRIAGEPLANS OF
COHABITING RESPONDENTS, BY WHETHER
Marriage Plans
Definite plans
Think marry
Marry someone
Not marry anyone
Total
Yes
40%
21
6
30
100

Ever Married
No
50%
31
6
13
100
Total
47%
27
6
20
100
922
could have a directcausalimpacton adjustment

after marriageif, for example,habits of relating
to each other (that seem appropriateto the unmarried)persistinto marriage.
Marriage Expectations
In Table 9, we see the marriageexpectationsof

our cohabitingrespondents.Slightlyless thanhalf
say they have definite plans to marrytheir parteitherhave definiteplans or think
ner, and 740%o
they will marry this person. These figures are
somewhat higher among those who have never

beenmarried-81% expectto marrytheirpartner,
comparedwith 6107 among previouslymarried
cohabitors.On the otherhand, a fifth of cohabiting persons do not expect to marryanyone; almost a third, amongthe previouslymarried.
We can examinecoupledata for those casesin
which the cohabitingpartnercompletedthe selfadministeredquestionnaire.Not surprisingly,responseratesof partnerswerehigherfor couplesin
which marriagewas seen as more likely (80% of
the primaryrespondentsin thesecouplesexpected
TABLE 10. MARRIAGE ATTITUDES OF COHABITING RESPONDENTS: UNADJUSTED PROPORTIONS AND

PROPORTIONS ADJUSTED FOR OTHER VARIABLES BY MULTIPLE CLASSIFICATION ANALYSIS
Troublea
Variable
Duration
0
1-2.9 years
3+ years
Education
Less than 12 years
12 years
College 1-3 years
College 4+ years
Sex
Males
Females
Race/ethnicity
Blacks
Whites
Mexican Americans
Presence of children
No children
R's and partner's
R's, not partner's
Partner's only
Income
< $10,000
$10,000-19,999
$20,000-29,999
$30,000-39,999
$40,000 +
Age
Under 25
25-29
30-34
35+
Married before
Yes
No
Total
Unadjusted
Adjusted
Marry Partnerb
Unadjusted Adjusted
Never Marryc
Unadjusted Adjusted
43%
58
48
39%
54
54
82%
78
61
82%
76
62
13%
16
32
14%
16
28
37
54
54
48
45
51
52
43
66
76
75
77
73
72
72
78
28
19
19
14
22
22
21
13
42
56
43
54
73
73
76
70
21
20
17
24
40
53
28
44
52
36
75
74
65
74
74
67
21
18
31
22
19
28
46
62
52
49
47
62
48
56
71
76
81
62
68
79
89
62
22
24
13
32
25
20
7
31
41
45
44
56
59
40
44
42
54
62
73
75
70
76
79
66
67
70
77
86
19
19
24
19
16
26
25
23
18
10
56
54
54
33
58
52
51
35
83
80
58
67
79
76
62
72
9
16
38
25
12
20
36
21
42
54
47
50
63
81
64
80
31
13
27
16
49%
73%
20%
aProportion responding "Yes" to "During the past year, have you ever thought that your relationship might be in
trouble?"
bProportion responding "Yes" to either "Do you and your partner have any definite plans to get married?" or
"Do you think that you will eventually marry him/her?"
CProportionresponding "No" to "Do you think that you will eventually marry someone else?" That question was
asked of persons responding "No" to the two preceding questions.

CohabitationandDecliningRatesof Marriage
marriage, compared with 73% among all primary
respondents). Among the couples for which we
have joint data, there is a fairly high level of
agreement about marriage expectations. Sixtynine percent agree that they either plan or expect
marriage, and 13% agree that they do not expect
to marry each other. At the same time, this means
that there is disagreement over whether marriage
is expected in about one-fifth of the couples in
which at least one partner expects marriage.
Hence, the relatively high instability of cohabiting
unions is not surprising when we consider that
about a third either disagree about marriage or do
not expect marriage.
As we might expect, cohabitors are not unaware of the potential shakiness of their relationship. Almost half say that they have thought that
their relationship might be in trouble in the last
year-and in three of every four cohabiting relationships, at least one partner reports having
thought the relationship was in trouble. Clearly,
there is a good deal of uncertainty among cohabitors about the potential stability of their union.
Compared with married respondents and adjusted
for duration and age differences, cohabitors are
almost twice as likely to report that they have
thought their relationship was in trouble over the
past year.
Table 10 provides 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.
Looking at the first panel of Table 10, we
might expect that disruption would prune out less
well-adjusted relationships. This would lead to a
negative relationship with perceptions that the
relationship was in trouble and a positive one with
marriage plans. Relationships of over a year duration are more, rather than less, likely to agree to
the "trouble" measure, while those of three or
more years duration are less likely to expect to
marry the partner and particularly likely to say
they will never marry. Apparently the dominant
selection process with increasing duration is associated with marriages of better-adjusted couples.
In addition, some subset of longer-duration couples who plan never to marry may represent more
traditional "common-law" marriages.
There is surprisingly little variation in these
items by education, though the "trouble" measure peaks among those with some college and
923
then declines, and expectations of never marrying

are lowest among those who completed college.
Females are more likely 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 the other factors.
We might have expected that women would be
reluctant to enter cohabiting relationships except
for relationships believed to be a prelude to marriage. In fact, cohabiting women seem more tentative about marriage than cohabiting men.
Despite the higher levels of marital disruption
among blacks, cohabiting blacks are less likely
than cohabiting whites to report trouble in the relationship, and Mexican Americans are least likely
to do so. Mexican Americans are also more likely
to say that they will never marry, perhaps again
reflecting traditions of consensual unions.
It seems clear that it is not just the presence of
children, but whose children they are, that affects
the relationship. Partner's children that are not
the respondent's increase the report of trouble,
and decrease marriage expectations, whereas if
the respondent has children in the household that
are not the partner's, it markedly increases the expectation of marriage and decreases the expectation of never marrying. There is surely an element
of wishful thinking in this pattern, reflecting the
associated economic and social costs.
The next panel provides a bit of a clue on the
economic linkages between cohabitation and marriage. There is a clear positive relationship between the couple's income and expectations of
marrying the partner, and a negative relationship
between their income and expectations of never
marrying. While the pattern is clear, it should be
emphasized that a majority of even the lowest income group expect to marry their partner. Further, even though income is positively related to
marriage plans, it is also positively related to
reports of trouble in the relationship.
The age patterns in these variables are not as
large or as consistent as we might have thought.
Cohabitors who have been married before are
considerably less likely to expect to marry, either
their partner or ever. This may be the beginnings
of the pattern noted for Scandinavia by Blanc
(1987), where cohabitation substitutes for remarriage for a majority of those experiencing marital
disruption.

924
Attitudes toward Marriage among

Never-Married Persons
Finallyin this explorationof the connectionsbetweenmarriageandcohabitation,we turnto comparisonsbetweencohabitorsand otherunmarried

personswith respectto five itemsrelatingto marriage. The sample is restrictedto persons under
age 35 since the sequencefor unmarriedpersons
that collected many of these measures was
restrictedto this age range. The five measures
weredrawnfrom a largearrayof relevantindicators and do not beginto exhaustthe potentialfor
such comparisons,butthey do speakto a number
of importantissues relatingto our topic.
We will focus only on the total meansfor these
variablesin Table 11, and on the differencesby
cohabitationandpreviousmaritalexperience.The
means themselvesare very revealingabout the
climate surroundingmarriageand childbearing
among unmarrieds.While older unmarriedsmay
well be selected for circumstancesand attitudes
leading to later marriage,the lack of much age
variationon the attitudeitemssuggeststhat is not
a seriousbias.
Contrary to the "coercive pronatalism"
themesof the early 1970s(Blake, 1972),parental
pressure to marry does not seem particularly
salient. Only 30% of this sampleagreethat their
parentswould preferit if they weremarried.The
proportionincreasesmarkedlyafter age 25, but
only reachesone-half among those in their late
30s. Never-marriedcohabitorsare most likely to
say that theirparentswouldratherthey weremarried, whereaspreviouslymarriedcohabitorsare
least likely (37% vs. 24%, respectively, net of
other factors). The latter is somewhat surprising-perhaps parents are less likely to express
opinions about their children'smarriagechoices
after a separationor divorce.
Cohabitationis clearlya stepbetweenmarriage
and datingwithrespectto the constraintsit places
on individualfreedom. Cohabitorsfeel marriage
would makeless differencein this respectthan do
others. Net of other factors, about a quarterof
the cohabitorssay that their freedomto do what
they want would be worse if they were married,
compared to about two-fifths of persons not
cohabiting.As we observedfor this item among
cohabitingcouples in Table 8, men seem much
more concernedabout the effect of marriageon
their independence than women (49%0 vs. 31070).
Several years ago, Thornton and Freedman

(1982)reportedtrendsin attitudesconcerningthe
relative merits of marriageand singleness.One
startlingaspect of that report from the Detroit
Area Studywas that only a thirdagreedthat "It's
better for a person to get marriedthan to go
throughlife beingsingle."At the sametime, twothirdsalso disagreedthat being singlewas better.
Thorntonand Freedmanput an optimisticface on
this, emphasizingthat most seemedto think that
it should be a matterof personalchoice. That in
itself is startling in the context of traditional
normsconcerningmarriage,but we can also note
that a third either were indifferentor thought it
preferableto remainunmarried.
We repeatedthe first item and also find that
only a thirdagreethat marriageis better;indeed,
a quarterexplicitlydisagree.Thereis also surprisingly little differenceby either cohabitationalor
previous maritalstatus. While the difference is
not large, it is notablethat malesare more likely
to agreethat marriageis betterthan are females
(37% comparedto 30%).
We asked a similaritem concerningwhether
"It's betterfor a personto havea childthanto go
through life childless." Only 29% agreed with
this, and 25% explicitlydisagreed.
Finally, the last item consideredin Table 11
concerns the issue of bearing children out of
wedlock.One-quarterof recentbirthswereto unmarriedmothers;ratesamongwhitewomenhave
more than doubled since the mid-1970s.As we
noted earlier, children are frequently born to
cohabitingcouples.A thirdof unmarriedpersons
underage 35 agreethat "It wouldbe all rightfor
me to have childrenwithout being married"if
they had plansto marry;a quarterdisagreedwith
this. Overa quarterthought it would be all right
even if they did not have plans to marry.
SUMMARY
ANDCONCLUSIONS
The large increasesin the proportionnevermarried amongpersonsin theirearlytwentiesis commonly interpretedto meanthat young people are
staying single longer. Because of cohabitation,
however, being unmarriedis not synonymous
with being single. Young people are setting up
housekeepingwith partnersof the oppositesex at
almost as early an age as they did before marriage
rates declined. Three-quarters of the decline in the
proportion of women married for the first time by

TABLE 11. ATTITUDES TOWARD MARRIAGE AMONG NEVER-MARRIED PERSONS UNDER AGE 35: UNADJUSTED PROPO
PROPORTIONS ADJUSTED FOR OTHER VARIABLES BY MULTIPLE CLASSIFICATION ANALYSIS
Parents Prefer
Marrieda
Unadjusted Adjusted
Variable
Freedom Worse if
Marriedb
Unadjusted Adjusted
Marriage Better
than Singlec
Unadjusted Adjusted
Better Childbear
than Childless
Unadjusted Adjus
Cohabiting
Previously married
Never married
36%
40
24%
37
21%
24
24%
25
29%
36
30%
32
30%
34
29%
33
Not cohabiting
Previously married
Never married
42
27
29
29
37
45
42
44
32
34
34
34
30
28
30
28
Education
< 12 years
12 years
College 1-3
College 1-3
College 4 +
College 4+
36
31
34
13
40
35
34
31
32
20
34
31
34
39
44
45
47
45
37
39
45
43
46
35
26
29
35
33
36
52
40
30
35
33
36
52
41
30
28
24
18
38
38
30
28
25
20
40
Sex
Males
Females
29
31
29
31
49
31
49
31
37
30
37
30
30
28
30
27
Race /ethnicity
Blacks
Whites
Mexican Americans
30
28
46
28
28
43
36
43
37
38
42
37
31
32
48
31
32
49
35
24
48
34
25
46
Age
Under 25
25-29
30-34
19
44
49
20
42
47
42
42
37
41
42
43
33
37
33
33
36
33
28
30
29
29
30
29
Total
years
years, enrolled
years
years, enrolled
30%
41%
34%
29%
aProportion responding "Strongly agree" or "Agree" on a 5-point scale to "My parents would like it better if I were marr
bProportion responding "Much worse" or "Somewhat worse" on a 5-point scale to "For each of the following areas, please c
might be different if you were MARRIED now ... (d) freedom to do what you want."
cProportion responding "Strongly agree" or "Agree" on a 5-point scale to "It's better for a person to get married than to g
dProportion responding "Strongly agree" or "Agree" on a 5-point scale to "It's better for a person to have a child than to
eProportion responding "Strongly agree" or "Agree" on a 5-point scale to "Please indicate how much you agree or disagre
statements: ... (d) It would be all right for me to have children without being married-If I had definite plans to marry the fa

926
Journalof Marriageand theFamily
age 25 was offset by increased cohabitation. Nor

does the decline in remarriage mean that
separated and divorced persons are staying single
longer. All of the decline in the proportion of
separated and divorced persons who remarried
within five years was offset by increased cohabitation.
Contrary to the popular image of cohabitation
as a college student phenomenon, the trend
toward cohabitation has been led by the least
educated segment of the population, and the role
of cohabitation in replacing early marriage is most
pronounced for persons who have not completed
high school. We have examined a number of characteristics of current cohabitors to shed more light
on the nature and meaning of cohabitation.
Cohabiting relationships tend to have been
formed recently, though one in five have been cohabiting for five years or more. Further, 40% of
cohabiting households include children. Thus in
many ways currently cohabiting couples resemble
married families. Most cohabitors expect to marry
their partner, though we find a surprisingly high
level of disagreement between partners about
whether they will marry, and a high proportion
are concerned about the stability of their relationship.
Attitudes concerning cohabitation and marriage suggest that while most expect to marry,
normative pressures toward marriage are not very
high. Indeed, one-fifth of cohabiting persons do
not expect ever to marry (or marry again). Among
all unmarried persons, only a minority agree that
it is better to marry than to go through life single.
One-third say it would be alright for them to have
a child without being married. While most expect
to marry and have children, normative pressures
toward marriage and childbearing and against unmarried childbearing appear very weak.
Thus the picture that is emerging is that cohabitation is very much a family status, but one in
which levels of certainty about the relationship are
lower than in marriage. This is partially a result of
the use of cohabitation as a testing ground for
marriage. We will never be able to determine the
proportion of current cohabitators who would
have been married at the same stage in their relationship under the regime of the late 1960s.
Nonetheless, it is clear that we must include
cohabitation along with marriage if we are to
understand family life in modern societies.
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andK. J. Krotki.1987."A hazardmodelanalysisof
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CohabitationandDecliningRatesof Marriage
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CALL FOR PAPERS
Marriage and Family Review
Special Issue: Single-ParentFamilies

The journal Marriage and Family Review is inviting and soliciting manuscripts
for a special issue on Single-Parent Families. The collection of articles will examine a broad scope of subjects focusing on single- or one-parent families or
where one person is primarily responsible for parenting the children. The
special issue is intended to be written and read by family professionals in many
disciplines, such as family social scientists, sociologists, psychologists, health
care professionals, social workers, therapists, and other researchers, clinicians,
and educators of the family.
Manuscripts that focus on a variety of content areas are desired. Proposal
topics include but are not limited to single mothers and fathers following
divorce; noncustodial mothers and fathers following divorce; single mothers
and fathers following death of one parent; adoptive single parents (male and
female); never-married teen parents (mother and father); and grandparents as
primary parents. The underlying goal of this special issue is a synthesis of
literature, research, and practice regarding families with one parent. Manuscripts should include a review of the literature on the topic, demographics,
synthesis of the research, and implications for research, practice, education,
and social policy.
Manuscript proposals will be reviewed by the four guest editors of this
special issue: Shirley Hanson, Marsha Heims, Doris Julian, and Marvin Sussman. Manuscripts should be prepared according to the guidelines of the American Psychological Association, and four copies should be submitted.
If you are interested in submitting a paper for this special issue, please call or
write the first editor by January 1992.
Shirley M. H. Hanson, PhD
Department of Family Nursing
Oregon Health Sciences University
3181 SW Sam Jackson Park Road
Portland, OR 97201-3098
Tel. 503-494-8382
FAX 503-494-4496


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Author(s): Larry L. Bumpass, James A. Sweet and Andrew Cherlin

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