Monday, August 4, 2003
University Park, Pa. --
Even though more than half of couples now do it, compared with only 10 percent
30 years ago, living together before marriage still is linked to higher rates
of troubled unions, divorce and separation, Penn State researchers have found.
The Penn State team compared data on 1,425 people married between 1964 and 1980
when cohabitation was less common and between 1981 and 1997 when cohabitation
was more common. They found that, in both groups, cohabiters reported less
happiness and more marital conflict than noncohabiters. Also, in both groups,
couples who lived together before marriage were more likely to divorce.
Claire M. Kamp Dush, doctoral candidate in human development and family
studies, is first author of the study. She says, "It had been consistently
shown in the past that, contrary to the popular belief that living together
will improve a person's ability to choose a marriage partner and stay married,
the opposite is actually the case."
The study, “The Relationship Between Cohabitation and Marital Quality and
Stability: Change Across Cohorts?,” was published this month in the Journal of
Marriage and the Family. Dush's co-authors are Catherine Cohan, research
scientist, and Paul Amato, professor of sociology and demography.
Although all the reasons why cohabitation and troubled unions are related
remains unknown, the researchers report that their data and a review of the
literature suggest that both personal characteristics and the experience of
cohabitation play important roles.
The Penn State team notes that research indicates that people choose riskier
partners when cohabiting because they think cohabitation will be easier to
break up than marriage. However, once a couple is living together, the fact
that they share possessions, pets, and children and have invested time in their
relationship may propel them to marry.
Research has also shown that living together in an unconventional relationship
can make people less religious and may encourage them to develop problematic
relationship skills and to spend less time resolving problems or providing
support to their partners.
They write, "A weak commitment to lifelong marriage and less attention
to communication skills during cohabitation may carry over into marriage and
make couples more vulnerable to the inevitable challenges that couples face
over time."
The study was supported by grants from the National Institute of Aging and by
the Penn State Population Research Institute with core support from a National
Institute of Child Health and Human Development grant.