Marriage and Cohabitation (Population and Development Series) - Hardcover

"Impressive... family demographers will find it invaluable, and other kinds of scholars and researchers will find it very useful. The authors point out that the predictors of entering into cohabitation and marriage are different, and they discuss how cohabitation may affect decisions about marriage.... The research reported here is important." - Noval D. Glenn, University of Texas at Austin"

Situating their argument in the context of the Western world's five-hundred-year history of marriage, the authors of this work reveal what factors encourage marriage and cohabitation in a contemporary society where marriage and the relationships between women and men have changed dramatically. While many people still choose to marry without first cohabiting, others elect to cohabit with varying degrees of commitment or intentions of eventual marriage. The authors' controversial findings suggest that family history, religious affiliation, values, projected education, lifetime earnings, and career aspirations all tip the scales in favor of either cohabitation or marriage. This book lends new insight into young adult relationship patterns and will be of interest to sociologists, historians, and demographers alike.