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Cohabitation has become part of the pathway toward marriage. Prior work focuses on expectations to marry and has ignored cohabitation. Although most young adults are not replacing marriage with cohabitation, but instead cohabit and then marry, it is important to study adolescents' joint expectations to cohabit as well as marry. Our analyses draw on recently collected data from the Toledo Adolescent Relationships Study (N = 1,293). We find that adolescents are less certain about their cohabitation than marriage expectations. Dating and sexual experience, traditional values, prosocial activities, and parents influence adolescents' union formation expectations. The findings from this work suggest that adolescents are including cohabitation as part of their future life trajectories but rarely envision cohabitation as substituting for marriage.
Key Words: adolescence, cohabitation, intergenerational, union formation, youth/emergent adulthood.
The traditional pattern of courtship in contemporary American society progresses from dating to engagement and then to marriage. In recent years, however, this progression has become more complex. Increasingly, couples move from dating to living together, which then may or may not lead to marriage (Bumpass & Lu, 2000). The majority of recently married young adults have cohabited first and have then married (Bumpass, 1998) suggesting that this is the contemporary path into marriage. The increase in cohabitation is tied to growing social acceptance of cohabitation, with young adults who approve of cohabitation more likely to do so (Axinn & Thornton, 1993). Building on prior research on adult expectations and union formation experiences, we focus on an earlier stage in the life course and ask adolescents whether they expect to cohabit and to marry. We center attention on adolescents because their expectations may foreshadow future trends in cohabitation and marriage and further demonstrate the increasing acceptance of cohabitation.
Using structured interview data drawn from the 2001 to 2002 Toledo Adolescent Relationships Study, we identify adolescents' expectations to cohabit and to marry. We draw on adolescent development, intergenerational processes, as well as adult union formation literatures. Given that most young adults cohabit and then marry, we explore adolescents' expectations to jointly cohabit and marry. Doing so moves beyond a traditional approach that solely focuses on marriage or treats cohabitation and marriage as distinct decisions.
BACKGROUND
Adolescents' expectations regarding their own cohabitation and marriage plans may provide...