The Breakdown of marriages and cohabiting unions in Quebec. Personal time and legal differences

Since the beginning of the 1980s, cohabitation has risen to a high level in Quebec. Among other things, this rise is related to changes in the Civil Code that have made cohabitation not only a true legal alternative to marriage, but the only way for couples to retain the level of economic independence that the traditional matrimonial regime of separation as to property had offered before the introduction of family patrimony in the Civil Code in 1989. One consequence of these changes is that in Quebec, cohabitation is not associated with being a low prospect for marriage or having some delinquent behaviour. The authors use this setting to examine how the dynamics of breakdown of marriage and cohabitation vary according to personal time rather than to individual characteristics. Using data from the 2006 and 2011 Family Transitions Survey and the 2001 Family History, they show that the hazard of breakdown of marriage varies according to age at the onset of the union whereas the hazard of breakdown of cohabitation varies according to age during the union.