Relationship quality and family transitions: The UK in international comparison

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In this project we will analyse couple relationship quality and how it is related to partnership formation, dissolution, and childbearing in the UK and across Europe. With our research we are able to follow both partners over time and accompany them through the first years of their relationship and into parenthood. This provides the unique opportunity to examine why cohabiting couples marry or break up and have children. This is an area policy makers are increasingly paying attention to, as the breakdown of relationships may not only have negative consequences for partners, but also for child wellbeing. Using data from Understanding Society, we are able to examine relationship quality along a number of specific dimensions, for example, shared interests, communication, frequency of conflict, and regret of having formed the relationship. Our analysis will allow us to assess which dimensions are most relevant for engendering good outcomes and enable policy makers to enact more targeted interventions. In this respect, our research will differ from previous studies in this field which often only use a single indicator of relationship quality.A particular focus of our study will be on differences between marriage and cohabitation, as the latter has increasingly become a more common living arrangement for couples and a setting for childbearing. While previous research has indicated that cohabiting couples have lower relationship quality, we are interested in whether these differences diminish the longer cohabiting unions last or if they have children. Furthermore, we will examine whether cohabitors with high relationship quality have unions which are as stable as those who are married, and whether they are as likely to become parents as their married counterparts. The survey design of Understanding Society and our use of advanced quantitative methods will allow us to gain a number of valuable insights. We will be able to examine both partners' perceptions of their relationship and whether the man or woman's view matters more for marriage, childbearing, and union dissolution. We will pay particular attention to financial problems and changes in employment to see whether disadvantaged individuals with poor relationship quality are more or less likely to have a child than those in a better economic situation. We will also consider the role of selection mechanisms that originate in early childhood - such as whether individuals come from separated families or disadvantaged backgrounds. Our longitudinal approach provides a unique opportunity to advance causal explanations regarding relationship quality and outcomes, as well as new insights into the key factors that determine partnership stability and duration.A further aspect of our study will be a comparison between the UK and other European countries using Understanding Society and The Generations and Gender Surveys. Due to differences in survey design, such comparisons have proved difficult; however, we will create a harmonized dataset of detailed fertility and partnership histories that will be made publicly available and ensure that the UK is not left out of international comparisons in the future. This will promote comparative research across this field, as well as providing further useful insights for policy makers and stakeholders both in the UK and abroad. Moreover, the results of our research will be disseminated internationally, both with other researchers and relationship quality practitioners.