Serial cohabiters less likely than others to marry

November 6, 2008

A new study in the Journal of Marriage and Family found that serial cohabiters are less likely than single-instance cohabiting unions to result in marriage. Similarly if serial cohabiters marry, divorce rates are very high.

Daniel T. Lichter of Cornell University and Zhenchao of Ohio State University used data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to track the experiences of serial cohabiters, or women who have cohabited with more than one partner.

Serial cohabiters were less likely than couples who cohabited only once to end in marriage. If serial cohabiters did marry, divorce rates were very high – more than twice as high as for women who cohabited only with their eventual husbands.

Results indicate that only a minority of cohabiting women (15 to 20 percent) were involved in multiple cohabitations. Also, serial cohabitations were overrepresented among economically disadvantaged groups, especially those with low income and education.

"Understanding 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 notes.

Source: Wiley


print this article email this article download pdf blog this article bookmark this article     Stumble it Digg this share on Facebook retweet share on Reddit add to delicious
Rate this story - 3.3 /5 (4 votes)

Rank Filter

Move the slider to adjust rank threshold, so that you can hide some of the comments.


Display comments: newest first

  • Mauricio - Nov 06, 2008
    • Rank: not rated yet
    Hymens have a function.... that is why people who marry their school mates, stay married more likely than those who are "free" and "enjoy" life at fullest... I am in the second case, unfortunately, but I know that I am in the wrong track in regards to married life.
  • Quantum_Conundrum - Nov 06, 2008
    • Rank: 1 / 5 (1)
    Hymens have a function....


    Yes, it is called "covenant" and a "covenant" is permanent.

    If a person cannot be trusted with a little, why should anyone expect them to be trusted with a lot?

    "Enjoy life to its fullest" is a PC phrase for "live like the devil and have no conscience about it".

November 6, 2008 all stories

Comments: 2

3.3 /5 (4 votes)
  • Stumble this up

  • Digg this

  • share this

  • hide
  • Related Stories




  • hide
  • Relevant PhysicsForums posts

  • Biography: Maverick Mathematician Joe Moyal
    created Dec 19, 2009
  • Writing skills
    created Dec 10, 2009
  • More from Physics Forums - History & Humanities

Other News

Fossil shelved for a century reworks carnivore family tree

Fossil shelved for a century reworks carnivore family tree

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created 23 hours ago | popularity 4.5 / 5 (8) | comments 5

More than a hundred years after its discovery, the limbs and vertebrae of a fossil have been pulled off the shelf at the American Museum of Natural History to revise the view of early carnivore lifestyles. ...


American scriptwriters increasingly incorporating Spanish in their dialogues

Other Sciences / Other

created 3 hours ago | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Nieves Jiménez Carra, a researcher and lecturer at the Pablo de Olavide (UPO) University in Seville has studied how scripts swap from one language to another in American television series and cinema. One of her conclusions ...


Nobel Physics laureates undeserving, colleagues say: report

Other Sciences / Other

created 19 hours ago | popularity 4.2 / 5 (5) | comments 2

Former colleagues of two American scientists who won the 2009 Nobel physics prize say the winners, Willard Boyle and George Smith, did not deserve the award, Canada's Globe and Mail reported Tuesday.


UNL research aims to understand homelessness among women

Other Sciences / Social Sciences

created 10 hours ago | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- Women make up nearly one-third of the homeless population in the United States. Yet little is known about how they become homeless or how they live. University of Nebraska-Lincoln sociologist Les Whitbeck ...


Christmas Carol Talk

Other Sciences / Other

created 20 hours ago | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Even without the lyrics, the tunes of some Christmas carols -- such as "Jingle Bells" or "Deck the Halls" -- sound uplifting. But the melodies of other songs like "We Three Kings" have a different, somber sound.