Serial cohabiters less likely than other females to marry
Women who live together with several partners serially rarely think of marriage, compared to those who stick to a single partner, a new study has found.
And if serial cohabiters marry, divorce rates are very high, the novel study by Daniel T. Lichter of Cornell University and Zhen Chao of Ohio State University has suggested. Such women are twice as likely to get divorced, the study stated.
For their study, published in the Journal of Marriage and Family, Lichter and Chao used data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, and tracked the experiences of women who had cohabited with more than one partner.
The researchers found that serial cohabiters were less likely than women who cohabited only once to marry. Moreover, serial cohabiters were two times more likely to get divorced than those who cohabited only with their eventual husbands.
œUnderstanding the myriad motivations of cohabiters may be more important than ever, especially if cyclical serial cohabiting couples with children have increased among recent cohorts as a percentage of all cohabitations, Lichter says.
The findings of the study also indicate that only a 15 to 20 percent of cohabiting women were involved in multiple cohabitations. In addition, serial cohabitations mainly came from economically disadvantaged groups, especially those with low income and education.
Cohabitation is defined as a relationship in which a man and a woman live together and regularly engage in sexual intercourse without being married. According to the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, cohabitation was once rare, but is now the norm, with roughly 10 percent of couples living together without marriage.
Over the past twenty years, the number of marriages has fallen considerably, while there has been a growth in the number of couples living together without marrying.
Some regard cohabitation as a Ëœtrial marriage’, while others reject the institution of marriage and never plan to marry.
Those who advocate cohabitation say it would be a wise idea for a couple to live together before getting married, as it allows them a trial period to confirm their compatibility and commitment and so avoid an unhappy marriage.
Source: http://www.themedguru.com
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