But it wouldn't be safe to assume that marriage will come back with them. Some families today are choosing cohabitation over marriage. Cohabiting households can look like a family from the outside they contain a man, a woman, and children. But they generally function differently than married couples. Cohabiting couples share the housework more equitably than married couples, but they share child care less.
Children usually belong to and are cared for by the woman.
The number of remarriages involving children has steadily grown in recent years. Four out of ten children will experience the breakup of their parents by the time they are sixteen years old and the greater part of them will become members of stepfamilies because divorced people remarry. About three quarters of divorced women and eight out of ten divorced men get married again.