Romantic Relationships 337cohabitors are more likely to have lower in-
come, lower education, and less likely to
have a relationship end in marriage (Lichter
& Qian, 2008). When serial cohabitors do
marry, they are twice as likely to divorce as
someone who has cohabited with a future
spouse.Outcomes of Cohabitation
Cohabiting relationships are usually of short
duration; most cohabiting couples either
marry or terminate their relationship rather
than remain in a long-term cohabiting rela-
tionship. Thirty percent of cohabiting rela-
tionships end in marriage after 1 year, 58%
after 3 years, and 70% after 5 years (Bramlett &
Mosher, 2002). These figures are higher for
Hispanics and considerably lower for Blacks.
High income and religious affiliation predict
marriage following cohabitation (Bramlett &
Mosher, 2002).
We said that people view cohabitation as
a way to test the relationship before marriage.
Does it work? Is cohabitation the solution to the
rising divorce rates? Almost half of Americans
(49%) believe that cohabitation makes couples
less likely to divorce (Saad, 2008). However, the
evidence suggests otherwise. A meta-analytic
review of the literature showed that those who
cohabited with someone before marrying had
lower marital quality and were more likely to di-
vorce than those who had not cohabited before
marrying (Jose, O’Leary, & Moyer, 2010). Even
cohabitation after divorce is associated with
lower happiness upon remarriage and less sta-
ble remarriage relationships (Xu, Hudspeth, &
Bartkowski, 2006). And, people who say that
they are cohabiting in order to test the relation-
ship are the ones with the greatest relationship
problems (Rhoades et al., 2009). However,
the negative effects of cohabitation on marital
quality and divorce disappear if one examines
only cohabitation with the eventual marriage
partner (Jose et al., 2010).relation to marriage in several countries, in-
cluding Italy where the frequency of cohabi-
tation is extremely low (9%).
The increase in cohabitation accounts
for most of the decline in marriage rates in
the United States. However, cohabitation has
merely delayed rather than replaced mar-
riage. In 1970, the median age of marriage
was 23 for men and 21 for women. Today,
the median age of marriage is 28 for men and
26 for women (U.S. Census Bureau, 2009a).
When first cohabitation and first marriage
are conceptualized as first unions, the age at
first union has not changed much (Bumpass,
Sweet, & Cherlin, 1991).Who Cohabits
People often associate cohabitation with the col-
lege experience. However, cohabitation is more
common among less educated people, poorer
people, and African Americans and Hispan-
ics compared to Whites (Laumann et al., 2007;
Seltzer, 2000). A common reason for cohabit-
ing is to share living expenses; people who have
financial constraints may view cohabitation as
an alternative to marriage. Economic reasons
are undoubtedly responsible for the increase
in cohabitation among the elderly (Chevan,
1996). Marriage increases income taxes and re-
duces social security payments. Elderly people,
who are often on a fixed income, do not want
to become involved in an arrangement that
will reduce their income. Cohabitation is more
common among previously married persons
than never-married persons and among people
whose parents have divorced (Cunningham
& Thornton, 2007). People assume cohabit-
ing couples are childless. This is not the case,
as rates of having children are almost as high
for cohabiting women as married women
(U.S. Census Bureau, 2008).
A minority of people are serial co-
habitors, meaning that they have cohabited
with multiple people over their lives. SerialM09_HELG0185_04_SE_C09.indd 337 6/21/11 12:40 PM