The Intergenerational Transmission of Cohabitation in the US: The Role of Parental Union Histories

Significant changes have occurred in family patterns in the United States over the past several decades, with noteworthy transformations in age at marriage, marital stability, the prevalence of living together unmarried and in the relationship context of childbearing (Cherlin 2010; Perelli-Harris and Gerber 2011; Smock and Greenland 2010). Recent U.S. data indicate that 41% of births occurred outside of marriage in 2009 compared to 28% in 1990 (Wildsmith, Steward-Streng and Manlove 2011). Although levels of marital instability appear to have plateaued, they remain high with 40 – 50% of marriages ending in separation or divorce (Cherlin 2010). Further, the role of cohabitation in family formation continues to increase. Three-quarters of first marriages are preceded by cohabitation (Manning 2010) and children born to unmarried mothers are increasingly born to cohabiting parents. Currently, 60% of all nonmarital births were to cohabiting couples (Manlove et al. 2010; Mincieli et al. 2007). The share of births to cohabiting women has therefore increased substantially whereas the share to single mothers living without a partner has held relatively steady (Kennedy and Bumpass 2008). By age 25, nearly half of U.S. men and women have spent some time in a cohabiting relationship. Of the 27% of young adults married by their 25th birthday, 61% cohabited first (Payne 2011).  Thus, a sole focus on marital dissolution significantly misrepresents family instability (Raley and Wildsmith 2004). Over two decades ago, in his presidential address to the Population Association of  America, U.S. demographer Larry Bumpass posed the question: “What’s Happening to the Family?” (Bumpass 1990). The issues he raised in his address motivate this paper. Most broadly, we are interested in documenting the family backgrounds of young adults today and tracing processes that may continue to fuel family change. We thus examine the family structures and transitions that recent cohorts of young adults experienced while growing up and explore the linkages between these patterns and adult first union formation; our chief focus is on the connection between experiencing parental cohabitation and whether this is linked to young adults’ entry into marriage versus cohabitation. We draw on data from a large, nationally representative U.S. survey of mothers, adolescents and young adults.