Family Facts: Social Science Research on Family, Society & Religion

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This finding compares the likelihood of separation for married and cohabiting couples.

Cohabiting couples were nearly eight times more likely to separate due to discord than married couples in the first year of a relationship. Cohabiting couples were nearly four times more likely to separate in the second year and three times more likely to separate in the third year. Cohabiting couples had a separation rate five times that of married couples, and following separation, cohabiting couples had a rate of reconciliation that was one-third that of married couples.

Sample or Data Description
Data come from the Intergenerational Panel Study of Parents and Children. The mothers in the study were interviewed eight times between 1962 and 1992. The children were interviewed between 1985 and 1993, when they were aged 18, 23, and 31. The analytic sample consists of 800 children from the study who were cohabiting or married by age 31 in 1993.

Source
"Separations, Reconciliations, and Living Apart in Cohabiting and Marital Unions"
Binstock, Georgina
Thornton, Arland
Journal of Marriage and Family Vol. 65, Number 2. May, 2003. Page(s) 432-443.

FindingID: 5327