The meaning of cohabitation

Polish society represents traditional family values with marriage remaining constantly the dominant form of a relationship. During last 30 years the number of marriages decreased which was accompanied by postponement of marriage, decreasing stability of relationships, enormous increase in the number of divorces and extra-marital births. Those signs provoke the discussion about reasons for such a change. Assuming that not only the objective determinants shape the process of union formation but the subjective attitudes as well, the goal of the study is to develop a set of distinctive perceptions of marriage characterized by the individual values associated with formal relationship. The explanatory method of latent class analysis was applied to distinguish attitudes towards marriage based on the subjective evaluation of incentives and socio-cultural norms attributed to marriage. The study was extended to test the expected changes in time as well as the influence of life’s experience i.e., experiencing formal relationship, having children, opinion on cohabitation, religiosity. As hypothesized, a map of distinct perceptions of marriage was created, including various traditional, modern and destandardized approaches. Expected age and life’s experience effects were confirmed, counter to expectations opposite effect of time was revealed

In high fertility populations, marriage and marriage processes are known to play a critical role in regulating fertility. We examine the connection between changes in marriage and attitudes towards fertility. How do different generations of women perceive marriage and family? How do changes in family formation influence marital practices like marital timing, spouse choice, living arrangements and number and spacing of children? How have changes in attitude affected fertility behaviors?
We use qualitative data from Bungoma and Kwale, Kenya. We show that marriage processes are fast changing, favoring pragmatic unions, commonly called ‘come-we-stay’, most of which are driven by pre-marital pregnancies and lack of resources required for formal marriage. ‘Come-we-stay’ unions are common among the young cohort, but are increasingly becoming acceptable. Their temporary nature causes women to be insecure and desire more children to secure the marriage. The desire for permanence in the union is clearly shown to influence women’s fertility desires and outcomes.

The study addresses the diversity of cohabitation across Europe and examines whether the meanings cohabiters attach to their unions are differently associated with intentions to have a child. Using data from the Generations and Gender Surveys on 3,006 cohabiters from nine European countries, we propose a cohabitation typology, based on intentions to marry, attitudes towards marriage, and subjective economic deprivation, and explore whether the links between cohabitation type and fertility intentions differ across Western and Eastern European countries. We find that the meaning of cohabitation, net of other covariates, influences fertility intentions and that, although cohabitation is quickly overtaking direct marriage as the leading form of union entry, there is little empirical evidence supporting the view that marriage and childbearing decisions are about to detach completely. In all countries examined, cohabiters who view cohabitation as a “prelude to marriage” are most likely to report short-term fertility intentions.

If today Hajnal would have had to use proportions single from census data to characterize marriage regimes of countries in terms of marriage timing and intensity, he would be faced with the widespread phenomenon of non-marital cohabitation which is increasingly dissociating relationship status from legal marital status. The main objective of the paper is therefore to document how historically and currently censuses have dealt with the issue of cohabitation. To do so, we have exhaustively analyzed of 900+ census questionnaires, representing about 200 countries, covering most of the world's population from 1970 to 2010. The inventory showed that direct ways in which cohabitation is captured include using the question on marital status (e.g. common-law marriage), a separate question on consensual unions (if available) and on the relationship to the head of household (e.g. spouse). Indirect way include the presence, or existence, of own children (mainly asked to women). As the spread of cohabitation has increased the proportion single in many countries, the census measure ‘legal marital status’ is losing its validity and practical use as an indicator of union status. While some censuses now capture current cohabitation, capturing the ‘ever in cohabitation’ is still a challenge.

The intersection between partnership forms and fertility is increasingly complicated in the United States and European countries. This is due to increasing variety in partnership forms, diversity in fertility and changes in the way that these two processes interact. For example, in countries such as Norway, non-marital cohabitation, birth postponement and births to stable but non-marital partnerships are important, while in Italy, birth is largely restricted to marital relationships, which are universal albeit postponed. This paper uses Latent Class Growth models to evaluate the relationship between partnership and fertility and how this varies across the United States and 15 European countries. These models optimise a number of typical behaviours, and we examine how these are distributed across both birth cohort and national setting, to evaluate not only variations in behaviour, but also differences in how relationships have changed during the 20th century.