An ongoing question remains for family researchers: Why does a positive association between cohabitation and marital dissolution exist when one of the primary reasons to cohabit is to test relationship compatibility? Drawing on recently collected data from the 2006-2008 National Survey of Family Growth, the authors examined whether premarital…

Research links sex ratios with the likelihood of marriage and divorce. However, whether sex ratios similarly influence precursors to marriage (transitions in and out of dating or cohabiting relationships) is unknown. Utilizing data from the Toledo Adolescent Relationships Study and the 2000 U.S. Census, this study assesses whether sex ratios…

Cohabitation has become the modal path to marriage in the United States. However, little is known about what cohabitation means to young adults today. Drawing on data from 18 focus groups (N = 138) and 54 in-depth interviews with young adults, this exploratory study investigates motivations to cohabit and examines potential gender differences in…

Recent research demonstrates that perceptions of gender mistrust are implicated in lower marriage rates among low-income populations. Yet few quantitative studies have examined the factors predicting gender mistrust during adolescence and whether it influences the quality of subsequent nonmarital romantic relationships. Analysis of three waves of…

Although disadvantaged women are the targets of marriage programs, little attention has been paid to women's marriage constraints and their views of marriage. Drawing on an exchange framework and using qualitative data collected from single women participating in a marriage initiative, we introduce the concept of marriageable women--the notion…

Cohabitation has become part of the pathway toward marriage. Prior work focuses on expectations to marry and has ignored cohabitation. Although most young adults are not replacing marriage with cohabitation, but instead cohabit and then marry, it is important to study adolescents' joint expectations to cohabit as well as marry. Our analyses draw…

Considered role of cohabitation in legitimation of premarital conceptions using data from 920 women. Found that, for white women in their twenties, pregnant cohabiting women were more likely to legitimate their first birth. Among black women and teenage white women, pregnant cohabiting women were no more likely to marry before their child was born…

A sample of married and cohabitating women is used to examine the impact of cohabitation on fertility. The transition from cohabitation to marriage does not appear to be influenced by childbearing desires. Once nonpregnant cohabitators marry, the timing of marital first birth is similar to that of women who never cohabitated. (JPS)

Almost all our knowledge about cohabitation in the United States rests on analysis of nationally representative, large-scale surveys. We move beyond this work by drawing on 115 in-depth interviews with a sample of young men and women with recent cohabitation experience. These data allow us to address two issues of central interest to family…

We draw on three waves of the Fragile Families Study (N = 2,249) to examine family stability among a recent birth cohort of children. We find that children born to cohabiting versus married parents have over five times the risk of experiencing their parents' separation. This difference in union stability is greatest for White children, as compared…

Assesses the well-being of adolescents in cohabiting parent stepfamilies. Teens living with cohabiting stepparents often fare worse than teens living with two biological married parents. Adolescents living in cohabiting stepfamilies experience greater disadvantage than teens living in married stepfamilies. Most of these differences, however, are…

Investigates whether fatherhood, and specifically involvement with nonresident children, influence men's entrance into marital and cohabiting unions. Findings suggest that neither resident nor nonresident children affect men's chances of entering a new marriage, but nonresident children have a positive effect on cohabitation. (Contains 79…

Examines cohabitation in premarital childbearing among U.S. women. Utilized data from the National Survey of Families and Households and the New York Fertility, Employment, and Migration Survey. Marked racial and ethnic differences in the role of the cohabiting union in family building were evident. Interprets findings in terms of long-standing…