Cross-national differences in women's repartnering behaviour in Europe: The role of individual demographic characteristics

Living apart together in contemporary Spain: Diverse motivations across life stages

Living-apart-together (LAT) partnerships are gaining prominence in many high-income societies, prompting ongoing discussions about their significance and their role in the family formation process. This study provides a contemporary update on LAT relationships in Spain, with a specific emphasis on variations across different life stages. The study focuses on several key aspects: (1) recent trends in the prevalence of LAT relationships, (2) socio-demographic factors associated with being in a LAT relationship, (3) joint influence of both partners' characteristics, and (4) short-term intentions to co-reside. Using data from the 2018 Spanish Fertility Survey, we employ logistic regression models to analyze the factors influencing individuals' likelihood of being in a LAT relationship as opposed to a co-residential partnership. Our findings reveal a noticeable rise in LAT partnerships in Spain over the past two decades, except among the youngest age group. Personal motivations and socially attributed meanings of LAT relationships, however, differ depending on an individual's life stage. Among young adults, LAT partnerships largely serve as a transitional phase in the family formation process, preceding co-residence with a partner. In this early adulthood stage, unemployment and temporary work contracts - affecting any of the partners - often hinder household formation, but intentions to co-reside in the near future remain strong. In contrast, LAT partnerships in the mid-life stage often stem from a desire to maintain personal independence and are frequently linked to prior partnership and reproductive biographies.

Educational Gradient of Multi-partner Fertility: First Estimates for the UK

Recent demographic changes in Western countries have resulted in higher rates of partnership dissolution and serial partnering, and an increase in childbearing across multiple partnerships. This has given rise to more complex family dynamics including multi-partner fertility (MPF), defined as having biological children with two or more partners. Yet estimates of MPF in the UK have not previously been available. This paper describes an 'indirect approach' to estimate the prevalence of MPF in the UK, for men and women, given different assumptions. The paper additionally explores differences in MPF according to own and parental educational attainment. Amongst those born in Britain in 1970, 12-14% of men and 15-18% of women experienced MPF by age 42, depending on the assumptions made. For most of the cohort, MPF occurred with two different coresidential partners. We have established that MPF is a common family formation in the UK, but there are large educational disparities in MPF prevalence.

Union Instability and Fertility: An International Perspective

In this article, we analyse the relationship between union instability and cumulated fertility among ever-partnered women in several regions across Europe and the Americas with different patterns of demographic behaviour in terms of fertility levels, union instability and fertility across partnerships. We hypothesise that the relationship between union dissolution and fertility might be less negative in contexts where repartnering is more prevalent. The analysis is performed on a large dataset of 25 countries, combining information from the Harmonised Histories of the Generation and Gender Programme with our own harmonisation of survey data from three Latin American countries. This allows for the inclusion of countries with differing prevalence of union instability as measured by (a) the proportion of women who separated by age 40, and (b) the proportion who repartnered by age 40. We first examine the prevalence of separation and repartnering during reproductive ages across regions, and we estimate the proportion of cumulated fertility attributable to unions of different ranks using a decomposition method. We then analyse the links between union instability and the number of children born by age 40 among ever-partnered and ever-repartnered women, using Poisson regression. Despite observing a high degree of heterogeneity in the proportions of births occurring in the context of repartnering both within and between regions, we find a pattern where a greater prevalence of repartnering by age 40 is accompanied by higher cumulated fertility in second or subsequent unions. Our multivariate findings reveal a negative statistical relationship between separation and cumulated fertility that is partially offset by repartnering in some contexts, and that the time spent in a union during the reproductive lifespan is a key determinant of cumulated fertility, regardless of national context and independently from age at union formation and union rank.

Less Is More? Repartnering and Completed Cohort Fertility in Finland

An extensive literature theorizes the role of repartnering for cohort fertility and whether union dissolution can be an engine for fertility. A large share of higher order unions are nonmarital cohabitations, but most previous studies on completed cohort fertility have analyzed only marital unions, and none have incorporated nonmarital cohabitations using population-level data. To analyze the relationship between the number of unions and cohort fertility for men and women, we use Poisson regression with Finnish register data to enumerate every birth, marriage, and cohabitation among the 1969-1972 birth cohorts at ages 18-46. We show that dissolutions of first cohabitations are the main pathway to repartnering and that most higher order unions are cohabitations. Nonmarital repartnering is a strong predictor of low fertility. In contrast, remarriage is positively associated with cohort fertility. Because the bulk of first-union dissolutions and higher order unions are nonmarital, repartnering is not an efficient engine for fertility at the aggregate level. Marriage and cohabitation are far from indistinguishable in a country often described as a second demographic transition forerunner.

Make up or break up? Partnership transitions among young adults in England and Wales

This study investigates partnership transitions of young adults born between 1974 and 1990 in England and Wales. These cohorts were affected by the expansion of higher education, increasing gender equality, and ideational changes, but faced increased economic precarity caused by the economic and housing crisis. Given these changes, it is likely that the partnership experiences of young adults including marriage, cohabitation, separation, and repartnering have also undergone considerable changes. We apply competing risks event history analysis to combined data from the British Household Panel Survey and the UK Household Longitudinal Study to determine how birth cohort, gender, socio-economic background, and educational attainment influence partnership changes. We study the transition into and out of first cohabitation and marriage and repartnering between age 16 and 27. Cohabitation has become a universal form of first union among young adults born in the late 1970s and 1980s regardless of their socio-economic background or educational level, but their first unions do not last long. While cohabiters are equally likely to marry or separate in the oldest cohort (1974-1979), cohabiting unions are very likely to end in separation among the two youngest cohorts (1980-1984 and 1985-1990). Consequently, repartnering has become common; those in the youngest cohort repartner rather quickly suggesting that an increasing number of individuals experience multiple partnerships. Highly educated young adults have higher rates of entry into first cohabitation than their lower educated counterparts across all cohorts. However, we do not find differences in cohabitation outcomes by socio-economic background and educational level indicating that the main changes have taken place across birth cohorts. The results also suggest that there is a convergence in partnership experiences among young men and women. The increased prevalence of sliding into and out of cohabitation could indicate significant changes in the meaning young people attach to first partnerships.

Women's Divergent Union Transitions After Marital Dissolution in the United States

In the United States, high marital instability calls for more research on union transitions after marital dissolution. Previous studies focus on remarriage and pay little attention to rising post-dissolution cohabitation. In this study, I apply marital search theory to examine the level, pace, and differentials of repartnering (remarriage or cohabitation vs. staying single) and the exit from cohabitation (remarriage or dissolution vs. staying cohabiting). Adopting union history data from the pooled National Survey of Family Growth (2011-2017), I track union transitions among a sample of N = 2129 women. Analyses based on life tables and discrete-time event history analyses reveal important findings. First, most women repartner after marital dissolution. Compared to remarriage, cohabitation occurs more frequently and shows a quicker pace. Second, post-dissolution cohabitation is short-lived, and its transition to remarriage is more common than to dissolution. Third, these union transitions differ by demographic and socioeconomic predictors, including age, race and ethnicity, and education. Overall, I reveal that post-dissolution union transition is a divergent and unequal process, and I further discuss the implications on theory and family inequality.

Does Re-Partnering Behavior Spread Among Former Spouses?

This study focused on individuals' re-partnering behavior following a divorce and asked whether divorcees influence each other's new union formation. By exploiting the System of Social statistical Datasets (SSD) of Statistics Netherlands, I identified divorced dyads and examined interdependencies in their re-partnering behavior. Discrete-time event history models accounting for shared characteristics of divorcees that are likely to influence their divorce and re-partnering behavior simultaneously were estimated. Findings showed that the probability of re-partnering increased within the first two years following a former spouse's new union formation. Further analyses focusing on formerly cohabiting couples rather than divorcees also revealed significant associations in re-partnering behavior. Following a former romantic partner's new union formation, women were exposed to risk longer than men, due to men's quicker re-partnering. These results were robust to the falsification tests. Overall, findings indicate that the consequences of a divorce or breakup are not limited to the incidence itself and former romantic partners remain important in each other's life courses even after a breakup. With the increasing number of divorcees and changing family structures, it is important to consider former spouses as active network partners that may influence individual life courses.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10680-021-09589-x.

Mind the "Happiness" Gap: The Relationship Between Cohabitation, Marriage, and Subjective Well-being in the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, and Norway

Many studies have found that married people have higher subjective well-being than those who are not married. Yet the increase in cohabitation raises questions as to whether only marriage has beneficial effects. In this study, we examine differences in subjective well-being between cohabiting and married men and women in midlife, comparing the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, and Norway. We apply propensity score–weighted regression analyses to examine selection processes into marriage and differential treatment bias. We find no differences between cohabitation and marriage for men in the United Kingdom and Norway, and women in Germany. However, we do find significant differences for men in Australia and women in Norway. The differences disappear after we control for selection in Australia, but they unexpectedly persist for Norwegian women, disappearing only when we account for relationship satisfaction. For German men and British and Australian women, those with a lower propensity to marry would benefit from marriage. Controls eliminate differences for German men, although not for U.K. women, but relationship satisfaction reduces differences. Overall, our study indicates that especially after selection and relationship satisfaction are taken into account, differences between marriage and cohabitation disappear in all countries. Marriage does not lead to higher subjective well-being; instead, cohabitation is a symptom of economic and emotional strain.

Divorce, Repartnering, and Stepfamilies: A Decade in Review

This article reviews key developments in the past decade of research on divorce, repartnering, and stepfamilies. Divorce rates are declining overall, but they remain high and have risen among people older than age 50. Remarriage rates have declined, but the overall proportion of marriages that are remarriages is rising. Transitions in parents' relationships continue to be associated with reduced child well-being, but shifting patterns of divorce and repartnering during the past decade have also reshaped the family lives of older adults. We review research on the predictors and consequences of these trends and consider what they reveal about the changing significance of marriage as an institution. Overall, recent research on divorce, repartnering, and stepfamilies points to the persistence of marriage as a stratified and stratifying institution and indicates that the demographic complexity of family life is here to stay.