JUDITH A. SELTZER
University of California—Los Angeles
Cohabitation in the United States and Britain:
Demography, Kinship, and the Future
Cohabitation is a rapidly changing aspect of
family life in the United States and Britain. This
article describes the demography of cohabitation, considers the place of cohabitation in
the kinship system, and speculates on the future of cohabitation. I argue that three processes—cohort replacement, socialization that
occurs when children live with cohabiting parents, and social diffusion—will foster continued
increases in rates of cohabitation. These processes are also likely to increase variation in
the types of cohabiting relationships that couples form. Understanding the meaning of
cohabitation in the kinship system requires distinguishing between individuals’ attitudes about
their own relationships and the composition of
cohabiting unions at the population level.
Academics frequently present papers that they
have already written. It is less common to write
a paper after it has been presented. This article
was originally prepared as one of three presentations for the plenary session ‘‘Cohabitation
and Marriage in Western Countries’’ at the
2003 conference of the National Council on
Family Relations (NCFR). The session was on
the last day of the conference, and many conference participants had already attended a series
of sessions on marriage and cohabitation. It is
Department of Sociology and California Center for Population Research, University of California—Los Angeles,
264 Haines Hall, 375 Portola Plaza, Los Angeles, CA
90095-1551 ([email protected]).
Key Words: cohabitation, family change, kinship, marriage.
not possible for a written presentation to capture
the excitement and taken-for-granted knowledge that this continuing conversation provided.
This JMF symposium, however, provides
a valuable opportunity to move the debates
about marriage and cohabitation forward by recombining presentations and commentary in
ways not possible at the NCFR conference. I
thank Paul Amato, who organized the conference, and Alexis Walker, who organized this
symposium, for providing these forums.
A goal of our session was to address three
questions about heterosexual cohabitation in
different Western countries to provide insight
into variation in the causes and consequences of
cohabitation in different institutional settings.
My remarks emphasize cohabitation in the
United States, the setting I know better, but I
highlight similarities between cohabitation in
the United States and Britain. Family researchers have a history of using data from British
studies to inform an understanding of family
processes in the United States (e.g., Cherlin
et al., 1991) because aspects of the social context in both countries are similar. Comparative
studies of cohabitation also group the United
States with Britain (Kiernan, 2002). In addition
to these similarities, there are intriguing differences between the two settings, such as the
greater racial and ethnic diversity in U.S. family
patterns. I believe that these differences provide
insights into the meaning of cohabitation.
I address the three broad questions that motivated our plenary session. As in many standardized tests, the questions progress in degree of
difficulty:
Journal of Marriage and Family 66 (November 2004): 921–928
921
Journal of Marriage and Family
922
1. What is the demography of cohabitation?
2. What is the place of cohabitation in the
kinship system? Is it a courtship stage or
an alternative to marriage?
3. What is the future of cohabitation?
FIGURE 2. PERCENT OF U.S. WOMEN WHO EVER
COHABITED BY AGE, 1987, 1995
1987
1995
60
50
DEMOGRAPHY OF COHABITATION
40
One reason that the question about the demography of cohabitation is easier to answer than
the other questions is that the past several decades have seen an explosion of rich new data
on cohabiting unions. I use evidence from
others’ research to describe levels, trends, and
differentials in cohabitation; the stability of cohabiting unions; and the relationship between
cohabiting and childbearing (for more complete
reviews, see Seltzer, 2004, and Smock, 2000).
Levels and Trends
Today, nearly 4.6 million U.S. households are
maintained by heterosexual cohabiting couples
(U.S. Census Bureau, 2004, Table QT-P18), reflecting a dramatic increase over the past 40
years. Figure 1 shows that in 1960, there were
just over 0.4 million cohabiting couples. Most
of the increase has occurred since 1970.
Another way to consider the increase in
cohabitation is to examine the lifetime experiences of women rather than looking at a snapshot or cross-sectional view. Figure 2 shows
that in the United States, 45% of women in their
reproductive years in 1995 had ever cohabited,
FIGURE 1. U.S. COHABITING COUPLES, 1960–2000
Millions
5
30
20
10
0
20-24
25-29
30-34
35-39
40-44
TOTAL
Source: Bumpass & Lu, 2000, Table 1.
compared with 33% of women in that age group
in 1987–1988 (see total column; Bumpass &
Lu, 2000).
British data show a similar pattern. Women
in more recent cohorts are more likely to have
experienced cohabitation than those in earlier
birth cohorts (Ermisch & Francesconi, 2000b,
Table 2.3; Murphy, 2000, Figure 3). Among
women born after 1960, Murphy estimates that
more than two thirds will have cohabited before
age 50.
In both the United States and Britain, the rise
in cohabitation only partly compensates for the
delay in marriage (Bumpass & Lu, 2000; Haskey, 2001, Figure 3). Cohabitation before first
marriage is now the behavioral norm. Over half
of U.S. couples marrying for the first time begin
their unions by cohabiting (Bumpass & Lu,
Table 3). In Britain, even higher percentages of
first marriages begin as cohabitation. Over three
quarters of all British first marriages start as cohabitations (Haskey).
4
Differentials
3
2
1
0
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
Sources: Glick & Norton, 1979, Table 17; U.S. Bureau of the Census,
2000, Table 57; U.S. Bureau of the Census, www.census.gov, 2004,
Table QT-P18.
In Britain, as in the United States, cohabitation
has become increasingly common at all ages
(Murphy & Wang, 1999). Higher percentages
of young women than older women are currently in a cohabiting relationship. Figure 3
shows that 21% of British women ages 20–24
were cohabiting in 1995, compared with 5% of
women that age in 1979. Note that Figure 3
shows current relationships rather than whether
Cohabitation in the United States and Britain
FIGURE 3. PERCENT OF BRITISH WOMEN COHABITING
BY AGE, 1979 AND 1995
1979
1995
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
20-24
25-29
30-34
35-39
40-44
45-49
Sources: Brown & Kiernan, 1981, Table 2; Rowlands et al., 1997,
Table 12.5.
a woman has ever cohabited, as in Figure 2.
Strikingly, the percentage of cohabiting women
in each age group increased by well over 400%
in almost every age group (Brown & Kiernan,
1981; Rowlands, Singleton, Maher, & Higgins,
1997; see also Murphy & Wang, Figure 4b).
The rise in nonmarital cohabitation in the
United States occurred for women of all education and race-ethnic groups (Bumpass & Lu,
2000). Close to 10% of unmarried White and
Hispanic women were cohabiting in 1998, compared with 6% of Black women, representing
substantial increases for all groups since 1978
(Casper & Bianchi, 2002, Figure 2.1). Lifetime
experience shows a similar race-ethnic converFIGURE 4. PERCENT OF U.S. WOMEN WHO EVER
COHABITED BY EDUCATION
1987-88
1995
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Less than
HS
HS
Source: Bumpass & Lu, 2000, Table 2.
Some
College
College or
More
923
gence in whether women have ever cohabited.
Among reproductive-age women, between 40%
and 45% of Black and White women have cohabited, compared with fewer than 40% among
Hispanic women (Bramlett & Mosher, 2002,
Table B; Bumpass & Lu, 2000, Table 2). This
convergence in lifetime experience masks substantial continuing race-ethnic variation in union (cohabitation and marriage) formation and
dissolution. For instance, Black women are
more likely than White women to form a first
union by cohabiting instead of marrying, and
are less likely to formalize a cohabiting union
by marriage (Bramlett & Mosher, 2002; Raley,
2000). These differences reflect differences in
the opportunities for marriage and the meaning
of marriage among the groups (Manning, 2001;
Oropesa, 1996; Raley, 1996).
Although U.S. cohabitation rates rose at all
education levels, women with less education are
more likely to cohabit than those with higher
education. Figure 4 shows that nearly 60% of
women without a high school education have
ever cohabited, compared with just fewer than
40% of women with at least some college experience (Bumpass & Lu, 2000, Table 2).
In Britain, socioeconomic characteristics are
not as closely associated with whether a person
has ever cohabited, as in the United States. In
large part, this is because the rise in cohabitation was so rapid and has reached such high
levels (K. Kiernan, personal communication,
March 12, 2004). If anything, among those who
have formed a first union, highly educated British women are more likely than those with less
education to cohabit instead of marrying directly
(Kiernan, 1999, Table 8). This difference in current union status might also reflect differences
in the timing of marriage by education. Country
variation in the association between education
and cohabitation is complex, and depends, in
part, on levels of schooling and on whether the
person is currently enrolled (Carmichael, 1995).
Low socioeconomic status, however, does increase the likelihood that British cohabiting
women have their first child in that union
(Ermisch, 2001) and decrease the chance that
cohabitors will marry (Ermisch & Francesconi,
2000a).
Finally, cohabitation occurs both before and
after marriage. Much of the recent change in
British patterns of cohabitation is due to the
increase in cohabitation before marriage. Figure
5 shows the percentage of unmarried women
Journal of Marriage and Family
924
FIGURE 5. PERCENT OF UNMARRIED BRITISH WOMEN
CURRENTLY COHABITING BY MARITAL STATUS,
1979–1998
1979
1989
1998
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
Single
Divorced
Separated
Source: Walker et al., 2002, Table 5.8.
cohabiting by their legal marital status. In the
late 1970s, higher percentages of divorced
women were cohabiting than never-married
women, but in just two decades, the difference
between the two groups disappeared. By the late
1990s, almost a third of women in each group
were cohabiting (Walker et al., 2002). Rates
of cohabitation also increased for both nevermarried and previously married women in the
United States (Bumpass & Lu, 2000). As in
Britain, the rise in cohabitation first occurred
among those whose first marriages had ended in
divorce, primarily as a step toward remarriage,
and then spread to those who had not yet married (Bumpass & Sweet, 1989).
These demographic facts have two implications for conclusions about the meaning of
cohabitation. First, the interpretation must take
into account that at least some types of cohabitation are more common among those with
fewer resources. Second, the interpretation must
take into account that the rise in cohabitation
occurred for nearly all groups.
Stability of Cohabiting Unions
Most cohabiting unions do not last very long. In
the United States, roughly half end within the
first year, and only 1 out of 10 lasts 5 or more
years (Bumpass & Lu, 2000; Bumpass & Sweet,
1989). Cohabiting unions appear to last longer in
Britain: About half are still intact at 34 months,
just under 3 years (Murphy, 2000, Table 2).
Cohabiting unions can end in two ways: The
couple marries, or they end their relationship. In
the United States, about half of cohabiting couples eventually marry. The percentage who
marry has been declining over time. For cohabiting unions formed in the early 1980s, about
60% eventually married, compared with 53% of
unions formed in the 1990s (Bumpass, 1998;
Bumpass & Lu, 2000).
The likelihood that a cohabiting union will be
formalized by marriage may also be declining
somewhat in Britain, although the pattern is also
consistent with it simply taking longer for cohabitors to make the transition to marriage
(Murphy, 2000, p. 51, Figure 5).
Again, there is a socioeconomic difference in
this trend. Couples who have more economic
resources are more likely to plan to marry and
to eventually marry than those with fewer resources (Bumpass, Sweet, & Cherlin, 1991;
Smock & Manning, 1997). The importance of
economic resources for marriage characterizes
both the United States and Britain (Ermisch &
Francesconi, 2000a).
Cohabitation and Children
Finally, cohabitation is not just a phenomenon
that affects adults. In 1999, a third of cohabiting
couples in the United States lived with children
under age 15, an increase from just over a quarter in 1980 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2000, Table
57). A similar percentage of cohabiting couples
lives with dependent children in Great Britain
(Walker et al., 2002, Table 5.9). Children’s lifetime experience of cohabitation is even greater
than these cross-sectional statistics show. Two
out of every five children in the United States
can expect to spend some time in a household
with a cohabiting parent before age 16 (Bumpass & Lu, 2000). For many children, exposure
to cohabitation occurs very early because they
are born to cohabiting parents. Among U.S.
births outside formal marriage, about 40% are
to cohabiting couples. In Britain, nearly 60% of
nonmarital births are to cohabitors (Ermisch,
2001, p. 109). These children are not born into
single-mother families, as many analysts assume when they ignore cohabitation.
Further evidence that cohabitation has
become a setting for childrearing comes from
Kelly Raley’s (2001) U.S. study showing that
about the same percentage of single, noncohabiting women who become pregnant move in
Cohabitation in the United States and Britain
with the child’s father in a cohabiting relationship as the percentage who marry the child’s
father by the time the child is born. In Britain,
cohabiting couples have become more likely to
have children together. Eighteen percent of firsttime cohabiting women became mothers of children born between 1963 and 1976, compared
with 9% of those whose children were born
between 1950 and 1962 (Ermisch, 2001, p. 117).
These demographic facts are important for
anticipating the future of cohabitation. Children
learn about cohabitation firsthand. Childhood
experiences can have lasting effects on children
and the unions they form when they become adults (Amato & Booth, 1997; Cherlin,
Kiernan, & Chase-Lansdale, 1995; McLanahan
& Sandefur, 1994).
THE PLACE OF COHABITATION IN
THE KINSHIP SYSTEM
It is now commonplace to consider the meaning
of cohabitation in the context of increased
acceptance of sex outside marriage and of delayed marriage. In part because young adults
are more likely to be cohabiting than older
adults, debate about the place of cohabitation in
kinship systems is framed as cohabitation is
a courtship stage versus cohabitation as an
alternative to marriage.
By framing the debate as a dichotomy—either
cohabitation as courtship or cohabitation as an
alternative to marriage—family scholars ignore
diversity in the meaning of cohabitation in the
population. Cohabitation for some is a convenient way to spend time together. For others, it
is a way to assess social or economic compatibility for marriage, and for others it is an alternative to formal marriage. Individuals may
change their minds about why they are living
together, and partners may disagree about
whether they are living together with plans to
marry. Partners sometimes even disagree about
whether they are, in fact, living together.
Understanding the place of cohabitation in
the kinship system requires that one also consider the meaning of cohabitation at the population level. There is a difference between
examining what couples say about themselves
and about their relationships and examining
what role cohabitation—or any other family
relationship (extended family, marriage, parenthood)—plays in an entire kinship system. The
latter requires information about the attitudes
925
and experiences of those who have never cohabited, as well as those who have had some
direct experience with cohabitation.
Change in the meaning of cohabitation at the
population level occurs because of change in the
composition of cohabiting couples, or in the relative mix of couples who cohabit as a step on
the way to marriage and those who do not intend
to marry when they begin to live together. Even
when one group dominates the population of cohabitors, substantial variation may still exist
(Casper & Bianchi, 2002; Casper & Sayer,
2002). We should examine both individuals’
current and lifetime experience of cohabitation
to infer the meaning of cohabitation at the population level, just as historical demographers rely
on cross-sectional and lifetime exposure to
extended family living arrangements to infer the
place of extended kin ties in preindustrial and
industrializing Western Europe (see Ruggles,
1987, for a discussion of this point).
A primary challenge of describing the meaning of cohabitation in the United States, Britain,
and other Western countries is that we must
characterize a rapidly moving target. The meaning of cohabitation continues to shift over time
as it becomes more acceptable in a wider range
of circumstances. At the same time, the development of new laws and policies that formally
recognize cohabiting relationships—domestic
partner provisions in health insurance and
retirement plans, and social recognition of cohabiting couples in everyday interaction—all
reinforce the legitimacy of cohabiting unions
and make it easier for couples to live together
regardless of whether they plan to marry.
The changing social context further alters the
place of cohabitation in the family system.
Demographic data suggest that for an increasing
percentage of the populations in the United
States and Britain, cohabitation is not a step on
the way to marriage, at least not a step on the
way to marrying that particular cohabiting partner. Fewer cohabitations end in marriage now
than in the past. Women are increasingly likely
to have different cohabiting partners, not just
the cohabiting partner whom they eventually
marry (Bumpass & Lu, 2000, Table 3). This
suggests a new form of serial monogamy that
might or might not include formal marriage. As
cohabitation becomes more acceptable, the
composition of cohabiting couples will include
a greater proportion who are not very committed to each other or to their relationship. A
Journal of Marriage and Family
926
majority of British adults already agree that it is
appropriate for couples to live together even if
they do not plan to marry (Haskey, 2001).
Greater acceptance of cohabitation, sex before
marriage, and divorce generally parallel the
same time trends as the behaviors they describe
in both the United States and Britain, perhaps
because both are the result of broader cultural
shifts in individualism and choice in family
behavior (Bumpass, 1990; Lesthaeghe, 1983).
Cohabiting unions are increasingly likely to
involve children, including children who are the
biological offspring of both partners. This and
the more general rise in childbearing outside
marriage in both the United States and Britain
challenge the received wisdom that marriage is
the only way to ‘‘license’’ parenthood. The rise
in the number of cohabiting couples with children alters the social context for adults and
children, who learn that cohabitation is an
acceptable living arrangement regardless of
whether the cohabitors plan to marry each other.
Young people’s approval of cohabitation has
risen steadily over the past 25 years so that
today, over 60% of U.S. high school seniors
approve of living together before marriage
(Popenoe & Whitehead, 2002).
Very few cohabitors explicitly reject the institution of marriage and favor cohabitation
instead, at least in the United States. Qualitative
and quantitative evidence show that marriage is
still a highly valued state (Edin, 2002; Thornton
& Young-DeMarco, 2001; see Barlow, Duncan,
James, & Park, 2001, on attitudes toward marriage in Britain). Maybe because it is so highly
valued, the expectations about the conditions
under which it is appropriate—economic requirements and love—are hard to achieve.
Higher rates of cohabitation among those with
precarious economic circumstances suggest that
if these couples had more economic security,
they would prefer marriage over cohabitation.
An economic upswing in the United States might
increase the percentage of cohabiting unions that
become marriages, all else equal. Yet, high rates
of cohabitation, even among highly educated
women and men whose economic prospects are
more secure, demonstrate the persistence of
cohabitation in U.S. family life.
COHABITATION AND THE FUTURE
In real life, it is rarely true that all else is equal.
Even if nothing else changes, cohabitation is
likely to become more common in the United
States through the process of cohort replacement. The older persons of tomorrow are the
young people of today, nearly half of whom
have already cohabited (Bumpass & Lu, 2000).
An excellent predictor of attitudes about what
constitutes acceptable behavior is whether the
person expressing the attitude has behaved that
way already. Divorced women who disapproved
of divorce when they were married become
more liberal in their attitudes about divorce once
they have experienced it themselves (Thornton,
1985). The same is likely to be true for cohabitation. Those who have experienced it are likely
to hold more liberal views about whether it is
appropriate for others, including their children,
to cohabit. For individuals who have not (yet)
cohabited, exposure to friends and coworkers
who are cohabiting provides information about
cohabitation as a possible living arrangement
and may encourage the formation of cohabiting
unions, just as exposure to divorced coworkers
increases divorce (Aberg, 2003).
Cohabitation is here to stay, to paraphrase
Mary Jo Bane (1976). The meaning of cohabitation is likely to continue to change, however, as
the population who cohabits becomes more variable in the reasons for cohabiting. It is unlikely
that cohabitation will become an alternative to
marriage in the sense that marriages will disappear. Roughly 90% of adults in the United States
will marry, although marriage is still more common for highly educated people than for those
with less schooling (Goldstein & Kenney, 2001).
Similarly, in Britain, nearly 90% of women born
in the late 1950s are likely to marry, but marriage
rates may be lower for those born more recently
(Ermisch & Francesconi, 2000b; Murphy &
Wang, 1999). Yet, economic insecurity and uncertainty about marriage in light of high divorce
rates mean that marriage is unattainable for some
people. Cohabitation provides some of the intimacy and support provided in close relationships
even if the partners are unprepared or are unable
to make the commitment required in marriage.
Cohabitation is also not an alternative to marriage in the sense that cohabitation is not on an
equal footing with marriage in the kinship system. In both the United States and Britain, cohabitation lacks the formal and informal supports
that marriage has. Marriage is a prized state
endorsed by public policies (Cott, 2000; Cretney, 2003) at the same time that public opinion
highlights the acceptability of unmarried men
Cohabitation in the United States and Britain
and women choosing to live together. Suggestive evidence from Britain indicates that cohabiting couples do not fully recognize the extent
to which they lack the rights of married couples
(Barlow et al., 2001; Dnes, 2002). The competing
and sometimes inaccurate views in public discourse foster variability in cohabitation. Although
cohabitation is here to stay, its place in the U.S.
and British family systems will continue to
depend on the shifting composition of the types
of cohabitations that couples form and maintain.
NOTE
This article benefited from resources provided by the
California Center for Population Research at UCLA, which
receives support from grant R24-HD041022 from the
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
REFERENCES
Aberg, Y. (2003). Social interactions: Studies of contextual effects and endogenous processes. Doctoral
dissertation, Department of Sociology, Stockholm
University, Sweden.
Amato, P. R., & Booth, A. (1997). A generation at
risk: Growing up in an era of family upheaval.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Bane, M. J. (1976). Here to stay: American families
in the 20th century. New York: Basic Books.
Barlow, A., Duncan, S., James, G., & Park, A.
(2001). In A. Park, J. Curtice, K. Thomson, L. Jarvis, & C. Bromley (Eds.), British social attitudes:
Public policy, social ties. The 18th report (pp. 29–
57). London: Sage.
Bramlett, M. D., & Mosher, W. D. (2002). Cohabitation, marriage, divorce, and remarriage in the
United States (Vital and Health Statistics 23[22],
DHHS Pub. No. [PHS] 2002–1998). Retrieved
April 6, 2003, from http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/
series/sr_23/sr23_022.pdf
Brown, A., & Kiernan, K. E. (1981). Cohabitation in
Great Britain: Evidence from the General Household Panel Survey. Population Trends, 25, 4–10.
Bumpass, L. L. (1990). What’s happening to the family? Interactions between demographic and institutional change. Demography, 27, 483–498.
Bumpass, L. L. (1998). The changing significance
of marriage in the United States. In K. O. Mason,
N. O. Tsuya, & M. K. Choe (Eds.), The changing
family in comparative perspective (pp. 63–79).
Honolulu, HI: East-West Center.
Bumpass, L. L., & Lu, H.-H. (2000). Trends in
cohabitation and implications for children’s family
927
contexts in the United States. Population Studies,
54, 29–41.
Bumpass, L. L., & Sweet, J. A. (1989). National estimates of cohabitation. Demography, 26, 615–625.
Bumpass, L. L., Sweet, J. A., & Cherlin, A. J.
(1991). The role of cohabitation in declining rates
of marriage. Journal of Marriage and the Family,
53, 913–927.
Carmichael, G. A. (1995). Consensual partnering in
the more developed countries. Journal of the Australian Population Association, 12, 51–86.
Casper, L. M., & Bianchi, S. M. (2002). Continuity
and change in the American family. Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage.
Casper, L. M., & Sayer, L. C. (2002). Cohabitation
transitions: Different purposes and goals, different
paths. Revised version of paper presented at the
2000 annual meeting of the Population Association of America, Los Angeles.
Cherlin, A. J., Furstenberg, F. F., Jr., ChaseLansdale, P. L., Kiernan, K. E., Robins, P. K., Morrison, D. R., & Teitler, J. O. (1991). Longitudinal
studies of effects of divorce on children in Great
Britain and the United States. Science, 252, 1386–1389.
Cherlin, A. J., Kiernan, K. E., & Chase-Lansdale, P. L.
(1995). Parental divorce in childhood and demographic outcomes in young adulthood. Demography, 32, 299–318.
Cott, N. F. (2000). Public vows: A history of marriage and the nation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Cretney, S. (2003). Family law in the twentieth century: A history. New York: Oxford University Press.
Dnes, A. W. (2002). Cohabitation and marriage. In
A. W. Dnes & R. Rowthorn (Eds.), The law and
economics of marriage and divorce (pp. 118–131).
New York: Cambridge University Press.
Edin, K. (2002, May 21). Interview for Frontline.
Retrieved March 14, 2004, from http://www.pbs.
org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/marriage/interviews/
edin.html
Ermisch, J. (2001). Cohabitation and childbearing
outside marriage in Britain. In L. L. Wu &
B. Wolfe (Eds.), Out of wedlock: Causes and consequences of nonmarital fertility (pp. 109–139).
New York: Russell Sage.
Ermisch, J., & Francesconi, M. (2000a). Cohabitation
in Great Britain: Not for long, but here to stay.
Journal of the Royal Statistical Society (A, 163,
Part 2), 153–171.
Ermisch, J., & Francesconi, M. (2000b). Patterns of
household and family formation. In R. Berthoud &
J. Gershuny (Eds.), Seven years in the lives of British families: Evidence on the dynamics of social
928
change from the British Household Panel Survey
(pp. 21–44). Bristol, England: Policy Press.
Glick, P. C., & Norton, A. J. (1979). Marrying,
divorcing, and living together in the U.S. today.
Population Bulletin, 32(5). Washington, DC: Population Reference Bureau.
Goldstein, J. R., & Kenney, C. T. (2001). Marriage
delayed or marriage forgone? New cohort forecasts
of first marriage for U.S. women. American Sociological Review, 66, 506–519.
Haskey, J. (2001). Cohabitation in Great Britain:
Past, present and future trends—and attitudes.
Population Trends, 103, 4–25.
Kiernan, K. (1999). Cohabitation in Western Europe.
Population Trends, 96, 25–32.
Kiernan, K. (2002). Unmarried cohabitation and
parenthood: here to stay? European perspectives.
Paper presented at the Conference on Public Policy
and the Future of the Family, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY. Retrieved March 13, 2004,
from http://www-cpr.maxwell.syr.edu/moynihansmeedingconference/kiernan.pdf
Lesthaeghe, R. (1983). A century of demographic
and cultural change in Western Europe: An exploration of underlying dimensions. Population and
Development Review, 9, 411–435.
Manning, W. D. (2001). Childbearing in cohabiting
unions: Racial and ethnic differences. Family
Planning Perspectives, 33, 217–223.
McLanahan, S., & Sandefur, G. (1994). Growing up
with a single parent: What hurts, what helps.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Murphy, M. (2000). The evolution of cohabitation in
Britain, 1960–95. Population Studies, 54, 43–56.
Murphy, M., & Wang, D. (1999). Forecasting British
families into the twenty-first century. In S. McRae
(Ed.), Changing Britain: Families and households
in the 1990s (pp. 100–137). New York: Oxford
University Press.
Oropesa, R. S. (1996). Normative beliefs about marriage and cohabitation: A comparison of nonLatino Whites, Mexican Americans, and Puerto
Ricans. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 58,
49–62.
Popenoe, D., & Whitehead, B. D. (2002). Should we
live together? What young adults need to know
about cohabitation before marriage (2nd ed.).
National Marriage Project, Rutgers University. Retrieved November 16, 2003, from http://marriage.
rutgers.edu/Publications/SWLT2%20TEXT.htm
Raley, R. K. (1996). A shortage of marriageable
men? A note on the role of cohabitation in BlackWhite differences in marriage rates. American
Sociological Review, 61, 973–983.
Journal of Marriage and Family
Raley, R. K. (2000). Recent trends and differentials
in marriage and cohabitation. In L. J. Waite,
C. Bachrach, M. Hindin, E. Thomson, &
A. Thornton (Eds.), The ties that bind (pp. 19–39).
New York: Aldine de Gruyter.
Raley, R. K. (2001). Increasing fertility in cohabiting
unions: Evidence for the second demographic transition in the United States? Demography, 38, 59–66.
Rowlands, O., Singleton, N., Maher, J., & Higgins,
V. (1997). Living in Britain: Results from the 1995
General Household Survey. London: Her Majesty’s
Stationery Office. Retrieved March 13, 2004,
from
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/
theme_compendia/GHS_1995_v1.pdf
Ruggles, S. (1987). Prolonged connections: The rise
of the extended family in nineteenth-century
England and America. Madison: University of
Wisconsin Press.
Seltzer, J. A. (2004). Cohabitation and family
change. In M. Coleman & L. H. Ganong (Eds.),
Handbook of contemporary families: Considering
the past, contemplating the future (pp. 57–78).
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Smock, P. J. (2000). Cohabitation in the United States:
An appraisal of research themes, findings, and implications. Annual Review of Sociology, 26, 1–20.
Smock, P. J., & Manning, W. D. (1997). Cohabiting
partners’ economic circumstances and marriage.
Demography, 34, 331–341.
Thornton, A. (1985). Changing attitudes toward separation and divorce: Causes and consequences.
American Journal of Sociology, 90, 856–872.
Thornton, A., & Young-DeMarco, L. (2001). Four
decades of trends in attitudes toward family issues
in the United States: The 1960s through the 1990s.
Journal of Marriage and Family, 63, 1009–1037.
U.S. Census Bureau. (2000). Statistical Abstract of
the United States: 2000. Retrieved March 9, 2004,
from http://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/statab/
sec01.pdf
U.S. Census Bureau. (2004). American Fact Finder.
Table Q5-P18. Marital Status by Sex, UnmarriedPartner Households, and Grandparents as Caregivers: 2000. Retrieved March 9, 2004, from
http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/QTTable?_bm=
y&-geo_id=D&-qr_name=DEC_2000_SF4_U_
QTP18&-ds_name=D&-_lang=en&-redoLog=false
Walker, A., O’Brien, M., Traynor, J., Fox, K.,
Goddard, E., & Foster, K. (2002). Living in
Britain: Results from the 2001 General Household
Survey. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office.
Retrieved March 13, 2004, from http://www.
statistics.gov.uk/lib2001/resources/fileAttachments/
GHS2001.pdf