External colloquium - March 5, 2012 - Wendy Manning (Bowling Green State University, USA)

March 5, 2012, 14:00-15:15, M.0061, Muntinggebouw:
Wendy Manning (Bowling Green State University, USA): Premarital Cohabitation and Marital Dissolution: An Examination of Recent Marriages

An ongoing question remains for American family researchers: Why does a positive association between cohabitation and marital dissolution exist when one of the primary reasons to cohabit is to test relationship compatibility? Drawing on recently collected data from the 2006 – 2008 National Survey of Family Growth, we examined whether premarital cohabitation experiences were associated with marital instability among a recent contemporary (married since 1996) marriage cohort of men (n = 1,483) and women (n = 2,003). We found that a dichotomous indicator of premarital cohabitation was in fact not associated with marital instability among women and men. These findings are consistent with a diffusion perspective. Furthermore, among cohabitors, marital commitment prior to cohabitation (engagement or definite plans for marriage) is tied to lower hazards of marital instability among women, but not men. This research contributes to our understanding of cohabitation, marital instability, and broader family change.

Wendy Manning is a Professor in the Department of Sociology at Bowling Green State University. She is the Co-Director of the National Center for Family and Marriage Research and Director of the Center for Family Demographic Research. She is a family demographer with a research emphasis on union formation and stability and relationships among adolescents as well as adults. She is the co-principal investigator on NIH funded grant, Counting Families: Household Matrices with Multiple Family Members, as well as funded projects on young adult and teen dating relationships and the meaning of cohabiting unions in the U.S. She has served as the President of the Association of Population Centers, Vice-President of the Population Association of America, and the Chair of the American Sociological Association Population Section.