FORMATION AND STABILITY OF MARITAL AND COHABITING UNIONS

该项目将扩大对正在进行的婚姻和离婚的分析

This project will expand analyses of marriage and divorce being conducted under HD2433, taking advantage of the wealth of data provided by the 1987 National Survey of Families and Households which is being conducted by the PIs. Analyses will include: I. Documentation of the extent and timing of cohabitation. We will document the explosive growth in cohabitation within population subgroups, and analyze differentials in the rate of cohabitation and in the rate of marriage following cohabitation. Trends in union formation by age will be compared for first unions (including either cohabitation or marriage) and for the more common measure of ages at first marriage. II. The Stability of Unions. Methodological issues to be addressed will include the measurement implications of reconciliations, replication of our recent estimate of marital disruption levels in the early 1980s, and comparisons of levels and multivariate effects between male and female respondents, and between marital stability and union stability (irrespective of marriage). The analyses of factors affecting marital disruption will be conducted for background variables; homogamy with respect to background, religion, and education; and for an array of measures of early marital experience including employment, unemployment and school enrollment. III. Remarriage Rates of remarriage will be analyzed with attention to the possible role of increasing cohabitation in declining remarriage rates. Our earlier work will be extended with particular emphasis on material relating to separation experience collected from persons separated in the last 10 years.