Cohabitation In America

Cohabitation in the U.S. and England

One of the main developmental steps in young adulthood is finding a romantic partner leading to couplehood, marriage and/or cohabitation. In the western world, cohabitation is becoming more popular as more people will cohabitate at some point in their lives and it is becoming more widely accepted.

Article 1: Seltzer, J. A. (2004) Cohabitation can have many different purposes in a relationship such as a good way to spend time with a partner, figure out what it would be like to get married to this partner, or it can also be an alternative to getting married (Seltzer, 2004). Cohabitation doesn’t always lead to marriage, but as time goes on, more people are cohabitating before marriages, and more marriages

Many surveys were done and data was collected and summarized in this study. In the United States, sixty-two percent of women between the ages of fifteen and forty-four have been married. Of these women, half have cohabitated and half have not (“Cohabitation”, 2002). Within the first five years of cohabitation, seventy percent of couples get married (“Cohabitation”, 2002).

There are many factors that influence what couples are likely to go from cohabitation to marriage. The probability of marriage coming from cohabitation is more likely for women with a higher family income (“Cohabitation”, 2002). Women with higher education, growing up in a two parent household, and having children after the start of cohabitation (“Cohabitation”, 2002). Women with a religious belief are more likely to make the transition from cohabitation to marriage (“Cohabitation”, 2002). Race also plays a role in the likelihood of cohabitation. White women are more likely to of experienced both cohabitation and marriage, while black women are more likely to of experienced neither (“Cohabitation”,

In eleven states and Washington D.C., common law marriage, where resources and property are merged, has become legal, allowing people to stay together even with no intention of a marriage vow (Peterson, 2013). Some common reasons people give for cohabitation are to test compatibility, to solidify bonds and to learn how to be a partnership. When asked the primary reason for moving in in and extensive survey, sixty-one percent of people said it was to spend more time with their partner, nineteen percent of people said it was for financial reasons, fourteen percent said it was to test out marriage, and six percent said that it was because they didn’t believe in marriage (Peterson, 2013). While there are many reasons to move in with a partner, as time goes, fewer people are doing it with the intent to marry. However, the things that give people the push to actually move in with their partner are things such as finance, convenience, and changes in their housing situations, however, marriage was not a key factor that was considered (Peterson,