Premarital Cohabitation and the Timing of Family Formation in East Asia and the West

Recent surveys show that cohabitation is gradually spreading in East Asia while it largely remains to be a precursor to marriage rather than an alternative. This study presents the results of comparative analysis of the effects of premarital cohabitation on the timing of family formation in Japan, South Korea, Singapore, France, Sweden and the U.S., drawing on microdata from the 2009 Survey on Comparative Study of Family Policies in East Asia and the 2005 Comparative Opinion Survey on Declining-Birthrate Societies, which were conducted by the Section for Measures against Declining Birthrate, the Cabinet Office of Japan.
The proportional hazard models were applied to the microdata for each sex of six countries in the 2009 and 2005 surveys. Dependent variables include the hazard of first marriage, first birth, second birth and third birth. Independent variables include education, urban-rural residence (citizenship and ethnicity for Singapore), premarital cohabitation experiences and the interaction of higher education and premarital cohabitation experience.
In sum, the positive effects of premarital cohabitation on the timing of marriage and childbearing tend to be found in East Asia and the West except for a few cases. But the precise effect depends on survey years, countries and gender as well as dependent variables.