IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/poprpr/v33y2014i2p287-305.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Cohabitation Expectations Among Young Adults in the United States: Do They Match Behavior?

Author

Listed:
  • Wendy Manning
  • Pamela Smock
  • Cassandra Dorius
  • Elizabeth Cooksey

Abstract

Cohabitation continues to rise, but there is a lack of knowledge about expectations to cohabit and the linkage between expectations and subsequent cohabitation. We capitalize on a new opportunity to study cohabitation expectations by drawing on the National Longitudinal Study of Youth (NLSY79) main youth and two waves (2008 and 2010) of the NLSY young adult (YA) surveys (n = 1,105). We find considerable variation in cohabitation expectations: 39.9 % have no expectation of cohabiting in the future and 16.6 % report high odds of cohabiting in the next 2 years. Cohabitation expectations are associated with higher odds of entering a cohabiting relationship, but are not perfectly associated. Only 38 % of YAs with certain cohabitation expectations in 2008 entered a cohabiting union by 2010. Further investigation of the mismatch between expectations and behaviors indicates that a substantial minority (30 %) who entered a cohabiting union had previously reported no or low expectations, instances of what we term “unplanned cohabitation.” Our findings underscore the importance of considering not only just behavior but also individuals’ expectations for understanding union formation, and more broadly, family change. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

Suggested Citation

  • Wendy Manning & Pamela Smock & Cassandra Dorius & Elizabeth Cooksey, 2014. "Cohabitation Expectations Among Young Adults in the United States: Do They Match Behavior?," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 33(2), pages 287-305, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:poprpr:v:33:y:2014:i:2:p:287-305
    DOI: 10.1007/s11113-013-9316-3
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11113-013-9316-3
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11113-013-9316-3?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Marcia Carlson & Sara Mclanahan & Paula England, 2004. "Union formation in fragile families," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 41(2), pages 237-261, May.
    2. Dimiter Philipov, 2011. "Theories on fertility intentions: a demographer’s perspective," Vienna Yearbook of Population Research, Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, vol. 9(1), pages 37-45.
    3. Clyde Kiser, 1967. "The growth of American families studies an assessment of significance," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 4(1), pages 388-396, March.
    4. Robert Schoen & Nancy Landale & Kimberly Daniels, 2007. "Family transitions in Young Adulthood," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 44(4), pages 807-820, November.
    5. Ron J. Lesthaeghe & Lisa Neidert, 2006. "The Second Demographic Transition in the United States: Exception or Textbook Example?," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 32(4), pages 669-698, December.
    6. Sarah Hayford, 2009. "The evolution of fertility expectations over the life course," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 46(4), pages 765-783, November.
    7. Ronald Rindfuss, 1991. "The Young Adult Years: Diversity, Structural Change, and Fertility," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 28(4), pages 493-512, November.
    8. Pamela Smock & Wendy Manning, 1997. "Cohabiting partners’ economic circumstances and marriage," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 34(3), pages 331-341, August.
    9. Aart C. Liefbroer, 2011. "On the usefulness of the Theory of Planned Behaviour for fertility research," Vienna Yearbook of Population Research, Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, vol. 9(1), pages 55-62.
    10. Larry Bumpass, 1990. "What’s happening to the family? Interactions between demographic and institutional change," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 27(4), pages 483-498, November.
    11. S. Philip Morgan & Heather Rackin, 2010. "The Correspondence Between Fertility Intentions and Behavior in the United States," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 36(1), pages 91-118, March.
    12. Valerie Oppenheimer, 2003. "Cohabiting and marriage during young men’s career-development process," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 40(1), pages 127-149, February.
    13. Jennifer S. Barber, 2011. "The Theory of Planned Behaviour: considering drives, proximity and dynamics," Vienna Yearbook of Population Research, Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, vol. 9(1), pages 31-35.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Rachel Arocho, 2021. "“I Have No Idea:” Uncertainty in High School Seniors’ Marital Expectations," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 40(4), pages 771-793, August.
    2. Sara Mernitz, 2018. "A cohort comparison of trends in first cohabitation duration in the United States," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 38(66), pages 2073-2086.
    3. Daniel Schneider & Kristen Harknett & Matthew Stimpson, 2019. "Job Quality and the Educational Gradient in Entry Into Marriage and Cohabitation," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 56(2), pages 451-476, April.
    4. Katrin Schwanitz & Francesco Rampazzo & Agnese Vitali, 2021. "Unpacking intentions to leave the parental home in Europe using the Generations and Gender Survey," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 45(2), pages 17-54.
    5. Wendy D. Manning & Pamela J. Smock & Marshal Neal Fettro, 2019. "Cohabitation and Marital Expectations Among Single Millennials in the U.S," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 38(3), pages 327-346, June.
    6. Eric E. Sevareid & Katherine Graham & Karen Benjamin Guzzo & Wendy D. Manning & Susan L. Brown, 2023. "Have Teens’ Cohabitation, Marriage, and Childbearing Goals Changed Since the Great Recession?," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 42(6), pages 1-29, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Viviana Salinas, 2016. "Changes in Cohabitation After the Birth of the First Child in Chile," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 35(3), pages 351-375, June.
    2. Charles Strohm & Judith Seltzer & Susan Cochran & Vickie Mays, 2009. ""Living Apart Together" relationships in the United States," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 21(7), pages 177-214.
    3. Jennifer Kane, 2013. "A Closer Look at the Second Demographic Transition in the US: Evidence of Bidirectionality from a Cohort Perspective (1982–2006)," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 32(1), pages 47-80, February.
    4. Matthijs Kalmijn, 2011. "The Influence of Men’s Income and Employment on Marriage and Cohabitation: Testing Oppenheimer’s Theory in Europe [L’impact du niveau de revenu et du travail des hommes sur le mariage et la cohabit," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 27(3), pages 269-293, August.
    5. Wei-hsin Yu & Janet Chen-Lan Kuo, 2017. "Another work-family interface: Work characteristics and family intentions in Japan," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 36(13), pages 391-426.
    6. Marcia J. Carlson & Sara S. McLanahan, 2009. "Fathers in Fragile Families," Working Papers 1189, Princeton University, School of Public and International Affairs, Center for Research on Child Wellbeing..
    7. Sebastian Klüsener & Brienna Perelli-Harris & Nora E. Sánchez Gassen, 2012. "Spatial aspects of the rise of nonmarital fertility across Europe since 1960: the role of states and regions in shaping patterns of change," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2012-005, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    8. Marcel Raab & Anette Fasang & Aleksi Karhula & Jani Erola, 2014. "Sibling Similarity in Family Formation," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 51(6), pages 2127-2154, December.
    9. Darcy W. Hango & Céline Le Bourdais, 2007. "Early Union Formation in Canada: Links with Education," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 23(3), pages 339-368, October.
    10. Kelly Musick & Katherine Michelmore, 2018. "Cross-National Comparisons of Union Stability in Cohabiting and Married Families With Children," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 55(4), pages 1389-1421, August.
    11. Elizabeth Fussell, 2002. "The Transition to Adulthood in Aging Societies," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 580(1), pages 16-39, March.
    12. Karen Benjamin Guzzo, 2014. "New Partners, More Kids," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 654(1), pages 66-86, July.
    13. Eric E. Sevareid & Katherine Graham & Karen Benjamin Guzzo & Wendy D. Manning & Susan L. Brown, 2023. "Have Teens’ Cohabitation, Marriage, and Childbearing Goals Changed Since the Great Recession?," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 42(6), pages 1-29, December.
    14. Maria Cancian & Daniel Meyer, 2014. "Testing the Economic Independence Hypothesis: The Effect of an Exogenous Increase in Child Support on Subsequent Marriage and Cohabitation," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 51(3), pages 857-880, June.
    15. Icek Ajzen, 2011. "Reflections on Morgan and Bachrach’s critique," Vienna Yearbook of Population Research, Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, vol. 9(1), pages 63-69.
    16. Janet Chen-Lan Kuo & R. Kelly Raley, 2016. "Diverging Patterns of Union Transition Among Cohabitors by Race/Ethnicity and Education: Trends and Marital Intentions in the United States," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 53(4), pages 921-935, August.
    17. Tomáš Sobotka & Laurent Toulemon, 2008. "Overview Chapter 4: Changing family and partnership behaviour," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 19(6), pages 85-138.
    18. Jona Schellekens & David Gliksberg, 2018. "The Decline in Marriage in Israel, 1960–2007: Period or Cohort Effect?," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 34(1), pages 119-142, February.
    19. Laura Tach & Kathryn Edin, 2013. "The Compositional and Institutional Sources of Union Dissolution for Married and Unmarried Parents in the United States," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 50(5), pages 1789-1818, October.
    20. Moore, Ann M. & Keogh, Sarah & Kavanaugh, Megan & Bankole, Akinrinola & Mulambia, Chishimba & Mutombo, Namuunda, 2014. "Bucking social norms: Examining anomalous fertility aspirations in the face of HIV in Lusaka, Zambia," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 88-97.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:poprpr:v:33:y:2014:i:2:p:287-305. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.