Just Living Together Implications of Cohabitation on
Families, Children, and Social Policy - 1st Edition
Visit the link below to download the full version of this book:
https://medipdf.com/product/just-living-together-implications-of-cohabitation-on
-families-children-and-social-policy-1st-edition/
Click Download Now
Just Living Together
Implications of Cohabitation on Families,
Children, and Social Policy
Edited by
Alan Booth
Ann C. Crouter
The Pennsylvania State University
Camera ready copy for this book was provided
by the author.
Copyright 02002 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
All rights reserved. No partof this book may be repro-
duced in any form,by photostat, microform, retrieval
system, or any other means, without prior written
permission of the publisher.
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates,Inc., Publishers
10 Industrial Avenue
Mahwah. NJ 07430
I Cover design by Kathryn Houghtaling LaceyI
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-PublicationData
Just living together: implicationsof cohabitation for children,
families, and social policy/ edited by Alan Booth,
Ann C. Crouter.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8058-3963-1 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1 . Unmarried couples-Congresses. 2. Family-Congresses.
3. Family policy-Congresses. 4. Child development-
Congresses. I. Booth, Alan, 1935- ILCrouter, Ann C.
HQ803.5 .J87
2001
306.73’5-dc21
2001033989
CIP
Books published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates areprinted
on acid-free paper, and their bindings are chosen for strength
and durability.
Printed in the United Statesof America
1 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xi
PART I What Are theHistorical and Cross-Cultural 1
Foundations of Cohabitation?
1 Cohabitation in Western Europe: Trends, Issues, 3
and Implications
Kathleen Kiernan
2 Contemporary Cohabitation: Food for Thought 33
Nancy S. Landale
3 (Re)Envisioning Cohabitation: A Commentary 41
on Race, History, and Culture
Andrea G. Hunter
PART I1 What Is the Role of Cohabitation inContemporary 51
North American FamilyStructure?
4 Cohabitation in Contemporary North America 53
Pamela J. Smock and Sanjiv Gupta
5 What Are theChoices for Low-IncomeFamilies?: 85
Cohabitation, Marriage, and Remaining Single
Rukmalie Jayakody and Natasha Cabrera
6 What Mothers Teach, What Daughters Learn: 97
Gender Mistrust and Self-sufficiency Among
Low-Income Women
Rebekah Levine Coley
7 The Impact of Cohabitation on the Family Life Course 107
in Contemporary North America: Insights From
Across the Border
Ce'line Le Bourdais and Heather Juby
V
vi CONTENTS
PART 111 What Is the Long- and Short-Term Impact of 119
Cohabitation on Child Well-Being?
8 TheImplications of Cohabitationfor 121
Children’s Well-Being
Wendy D. Manning
9 Cohabitationand
Child
Development 153
Ariel Kalil
10 Of FathersandPheromones:Implications of 161
Cohabitation for Daughters’ Pubertal Timing
Bruce J. Ellis
11 ChildWell-Being in CohabitingFamilies 173
Susan L. Brown
PART IV How Are Cohabiting Couples and Their 189
Children Affected by Current Policies?
What Policies Are Needed for These Individuals?
12 Safety
Net
Programs,
Mamage,
and
Cohabitation
191
Wendell E. Pritnus and JennifEr Beeson
13 Federal
Social
Policy,
Cohabitation,
and
Marriage
229
Ron Haskins
14 The
Complexity of Transfer
Tax
and Program
237
Rules Regarding Cohabitation: Challenges
and Implications
Anne E. Winkler
15 Economic
The Rights
Responsibilities
and of 247
Unmarried Cohabitants
Margaret M.Mahoney
16 WhatDoes it MeantoBe“JustLivingTogether” in the255
New Millennium? An Overview
Lynette F: Hoelter and DawnE. Staufjrer
CONTENTS vii
Author Index 273
Subject Index 281
This Page Intentionally Left Blank
Preface
Recent demographic trends signal that the time has come for family researchers
and policymakers totake a serious look at cohabitation. Therise in the number of
couples in the United States who optto cohabit outside of marriage has risen mark-
edly over the last several decades. Forty-one percent of women between the agesof
15 and 44, have cohabited, and 7% of women in this age bracket are currently
cohabiting. For some, cohabitation is a prelude to marriage. Other couples opt to
live together after dissolving a previous marriage and may do so for months or
even years. For growing
a number of men and women, cohabitation is not linked to
marriage in any way but is ;I long-term substitute for formal marriage and may
involve having children. Although cohabitation is on the rise, family scholarshave
been somewhat slow to focus on this evolving family form.Indeed, little is known
about the conditions that give rise to cohabitation and the consequences of this
family form forcohabiting adults and their children. Understanding the meaning of
cohabitation across racial and ethnic groups, for men, women, and children, and
for the quality of family relationships is a crucial prerequisite to developingsocial
policy in this area.
The chapters in this volume are based on the presentations and discussions
from a nationalsymposium entitled “Just Living Together: Implicationsof Cohabi-
tation for Children, Families, and Social Policy,” held at the Pennsylvania State
University, October 3&3 I , 2000, as the eighth in a series of annual interdiscipli-
nary symposia focused on family issues. The book is divided into four sections,
each dealing with a differentaspect of Cohabitation. The first section addresses the
big picture question, “What are the historical and cross-cultural foundations of
cohabitation?” British demographer Kathleen Kiernan addresses this issue by us-
ing a variety of survey data sets that encompass variations across European na-
tions. Her chapter is complemented by the comments of demographer Nancy
Landale, sociologist Julie Brines, and human development scholar Andrea Hunter
who widen thecomparative frameworkto encompass someof the ethnic andracial
diversity in North America and LatinAmerica.
The secondsection focuses specifically on North America and asks,“What is
the role of cohabitation in contemporary North American family structure?” The
lead chapter by demographers Pamela Smock and Sanjiv Gupta provides a de-
tailed picture of the circumstances that appear togive rise to cohabitation, includ-
ing comparative data on Quebec, wherecohabitation is strikingly high, andthe rest
of Canada. Chaptersby Rukmalie Jayakody andNatasha Cabrera, an interdiscipli-
nary team, Rebekah Levine Coley, a developmental researcher, and Celine Le
Bourdais, a demographer from Quebec, take different angles on this issue. Two
key issues that emerge in their chapters isthe need to think about cohabitation in a
more process-oriented way and the importance of comparing cohabiting families
ix
X PREFACE
not only to married families but to other family forms,including mother-headed,
postdivorce families and families in which mothers have never married.
In the third section, the focus turns to the question, “What is the long- and
short-term impact of cohabitation on child well-being?’ Demographer Wendy
Manning addresses this importantbut neglected question with the most compre-
hensive review to dateof the available evidence. The authors of the three chapters
that follow Manning’s all take quite different approaches tothis issue. Ariel Kalil,
a developmental scholar, underscores the importance of looking at individual dif-
ferences in children and underscores how the implications of cohabitation may
vary depending on children’s developmental stage. Demographer Susan Brown
presents research showing that children living in cohabiting families appear more
similar to children residing withsingle mothers both in terms of poverty and well-
being. Bruce Ellis, a developmental scholar with bioevolutionary interests, reviews
some of the provocative new evidence that suggests that a girl’s onset of puberty
may be sped up if her mother cohabits with a malewho isnot the girl’s biological
parent.
The final section addresses how cohabiting couples are affected by current
policies and what policyinnovations could be introducedto support these couples.
Wendell Primus and Jennifer Beeson,of the Center on Budget and Policy Priori-
ties, lay out the current programs available to cohabiting couplesand explicate the
situations under which the presence of a cohabiting partner alters the benefits fami-
lies receive. This overview is amplified and critiqued in chapters by legal scholar
Margaret Mahoney, economist AnneWinkler, andRon Haskinsof the Senate Sub-
committee on Human Resources, committee on Ways and Means.
Together, these chapters represent one of the first systematic efforts to focus
on cohabitation. As such, they provide a road map for future research, program
development, and policymaking in this area andan important resource for people
interested in learning about variations in the ways familiesof today arechoosing to
organize themselves. In an effort to integrate the themes that cut across the four
focal areas and suggest profitable directions for future activity in this area, Penn
State colleaguesLynette Hofer and Dawn Stauffer have contributed a closing com-
mentary chapter that pulls the volume together.
Acknowledgments
We are grateful to many organizations and people for their assistance in both de-
veloping the symposium and pulling together this edited volume.We are indebted
to the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development for their support
of the symposium series. We thank many units at Penn State for their assistance,
including the Population Research Institute, the Consortium for Children,Youth,
and Families, the Prevention Research Center, the College of Agricultural Sci-
ences, the Center for Human Development and Family Research in Diverse Con-
texts, Dickinson School of Law, the Departments of Human Development and Family
Studies, Psychology, Sociology,Economics, and Labor Studies and Industrial Re-
lations, the Crime, Law, and Justice Program, and the Women’s Studies Program.
A lively, interdisciplinary group of scholars from across the Penn State cam-
pus meets withus each year to generate topics for the next symposia. We are grate-
ful for their rich reservoirof ideas and their enthusiasm.
We are alsograteful for the
intellectual guidance and support of Christine Bachrach, our program officer at
NICHD. The contributionsof Cassie Johnstonbaugh, Erin Lesser, Diane Mattern,
Kris McNeel, SherryYocum, and Kim Zimmerman in assisting with the adminis-
tration of the symposiumwere invaluable. Special thanks to our colleagues Robert
Shoen, Sal Oropesa, Mark Greenberg, and Rukmalie Jayakody for presiding over
the four sessions and for steering discussion in stimulating directions.
-Alan Booth
-Ann C. Crouter
xi
This Page Intentionally Left Blank
I
What Are the Historical and Cross-Cultural
Foundations of Cohabitation?
This Page Intentionally Left Blank
Cohabitation in Western Europe:
Trends, Issues, and Implications
In many Western European nations, few developments in family life have been
quite as dramaticas the recent risesin unmarried cohabitation and having children
outside of marriage. Although cohabitationis often regarded asa recent develop-
ment, it includes a range of living arrangements someof which arenovel whereas
others are more traditional. Prior to the 1970s, cohabiting unions were largely
statistically invisible and may well have been socially invisible outside of the
local community or milieu.In some European countries, there were subgroups of
the population who were more prone to cohabitationthan others: the poor; those
whose marriages had broken up but were unable toobtain a divorce; certaingroups
of rural dwellers; and groups who were ideologically opposed to marriage.
Although there are few statistical data on how common cohabitation wasin
the past, there is evidence from parish register data for Britain, that stable,
nonmarital procreative unions in earlier periods, going back several centuries,
often attained the status of legal marriage (Laslett, Oosterveen, & Smith, 1980).
Moreover, cohabitation after a marriage breaks down and between marriages is
unlikely to be arecent development as common sense alone would suggest that in
periods when divorces were less easy to obtain people might well choose to co-
habit. Booth, in his studiesof the laboring populationin London, noted that those
who were most likelyto cohabitate were older, formerly married persons. He noted
“more license is grantedby public opinion to the evasion of laws of marriage by
those who have found it a failure, than is allowed to those who relations to each
other havenot yet assumed a permanent form” (Booth, 1902, cited in Gillis, 1985,
p. 232).
Similarly, in other European countries there are a number of historical sources
from around the beginning of the 20th centurythat suggest that the phenomenon
was sufficiently visible to attract some comment. In Sweden, according to Trost
(1988), there were two types of cohabitation: one known as “marriage of con-
science” practiced by a group of intellectuals asa protest against the fact that only
church marriageswere permitted at thattime (their protests led to the introduction
of civil marriage in 1909) and the second known as “Stockholm marriages,” which
were found among poor people who could not afford to marry. These unions were
probably akin to those observed in poorer sectionsof British, French, and German
3
4 KIERNAN
urban society (on Britain see Roberts, 1973; on France see Villeneuve-Gokalp,
1991; and on Germany, see Abrams, 1993).
A NEW FORM OF COHABITATION
It is likely that cohabitation following marital breakdown persisted throughout the
20th century, and postmarital cohabitation was the most prevalent form of cohabi-
tation in the 1950s and 1960s. For example, in Britain among women marrying in
the latter half of the 1960s, only 6% of never married women reported having
lived with their husband prior to marriage compared with one in four women who
were remarrying (General Household Survey, 1989). Moreover, with the growth
in divorce that has occurred across European nations, “postmarital” cohabitation
has become even more prevalent with the divorced cohabiting either in preference
to, or as a prelude to, remarriage.
Whether the poor continued to enter into informal unions is unknown, al-
though in France there is some evidence that this continued to be the case (see
Villeneuve-Gokalp, 1991). However, given the growing popularity of marriage
and, in particular, youthful marriage that occurred in the 1950s and 1960s, it is
likely that informal unions among single people were rare during these decades. A
so-called golden age of marriage prevailed in Western European nations from the
1950s up to the early 1970s (Festy, 1980), when marriage was youthful and al-
most universal. This pattern of marriage receded during the 1970s.Mamage rates
declined and the average age at marriage increased. This situation continues un-
abated to the present time. It is a new type of cohabitation that is implicated in the
marriage bust that has occurred across European nations. A form of cohabitation
came to the fore in the 1970s and has escalated during the 1980s and 1990s.
whereby young people live together as a prelude to, or as an alternative to mar-
riage.
European researchers have also attempted to discover where in the social
structure cohabitation first took hold. Who were the initiators of this new form of
cohabitation? For Norway, the results are inconclusive (Blom, 1994; Ramsoy,
1994). Some analyses suggest that it began among university students, others that
it began among the poor (a legacy of the past). Similarly, in France there is evi-
dence (Villeneuve-Gokalp, 199l ) that cohabitation developed first among upper
class children and university students and then spread down, but initially it was
more common among the lower social groups, particularly the unemployed. In
Sweden, the rise in cohabitation was initially observed among the working classes
(B. Hoem, 1992). But Bernhardt and Hoem (1985) also observed that in the case
of working-class women, cohabitation was a setting for having children, whereas
1. COHABITATIONIN WESTERN EUROPE 5
among the daughters of salaried workers, it was a relatively long-lasting childless
phase. In Britain, cohabitation was embraced so rapidly across the social spec-
trum that it is difficult from the extant data to clearly identify the initiators (Kiernan,
1989). The speed with which this new phenomenon took hold in many countries
may account for the lack of a clear answer to who initiated this change.
A PARTNERSHIPTRANSITION?
It has been suggested by several scholars that many European societies may be
going through a transition in the way that men and women become couples 01
partners (see Prinz, 1995, for a review). Most scholars draw on the experience 01
the Swedish population, which is the nation that has gone furthest in these devel-
opments, from which a number of stages can be identified (J. Hoem & Hoem
1988). Simplifying, in the first stage, cohabitation emerges as a deviant or avant-
garde phenomenon practiced by a small group of the single population, while thc
great majority of the population marries directly. In the second stage, cohabitatior
functions as either a prelude to or a probationary period where the strength of the
relationship may be tested prior to committing to marriage and is predominantly i
childless phase. In the third stage, cohabitation becomes socially acceptable as ar
alternative to marriage and becoming a parent is no longer restricted to marriage
Finally, in the fourth stage, cohabitation and marriage become indistinguishablc
with children being born and reared within both, and the partnership transitior
could be said to be complete. Sweden and Denmark are countries that have madc
the transition to this fourth stage. These stages may vary in duration, but once i
society has reached a particular stage it is unlikely that there will be a return to ar
earlier stage. Also, once a certain stage has been reached, all the previous types o
cohabiting unions can co-exist. Such stages also have parallels at the level of thc
individual. At any given time, cohabitation may have different meanings for thc
men and women involved (Manting, 1996), for example, it may be viewed as ar
alternative to being single, or as a precursor to marriage, or as a substitute fo
mamage. Moreover, how a couple perceives their cohabitation may change ove
time and the perception may also vary between the partners. Dissecting cohabita
tion in this way highlights the diversity of the phenomenon and suggests that morc
so than marriage it is a process rather than an event. Additionally, the inconstanc!
of cohabitation poses challenges for the analysis as well as the understanding o
this development in family life.
In this chapter, we examine data on cohabitation and childbearing outsidc
marriage for a range of European countries to ascertain the extent and depth o
these changes and we also examine the policy responses to these developments.
