Cohabiting, Dating, and Perceived Costs of Marriage: A Model of Marriage Entry

This paper investigates the decision to marry among individuals in cohabiting and steady noncohabiting relationships, with emphasis on the effects of cohabitation in the decision-making process. A model is proposed wherein cohabitation influences the perceived costs and benefits of marriage, which influence intentions and expectations to marry, which influence actual marriage entry. The model is tested using data from the first and second waves of the National Survey of Families and Households. Cohabitation status is found to predict perceived costs and benefits of marriage, and also to predict marriage intentions and expectations. Cost perceptions further predict intentions and expectations among both cohabitors and daters, and perceived costs, intentions, and expectations to marry the partner predict actual marriage behavior. Cohabitation appears to significantly change the context in which decisions about marriage are made in romantic relationships and merits a greater place in the literature on dating and courtship. Key Words: cohabitation, costs/benefits, courtship, marriage, union transitions. Although courtship is widely recognized as the process that leads to marriage (in the sense that nearly all marriages in our society are preceded by some sort of courtship), our knowledge of courtship as a precursor to marriage is seriously limited (White, 1991). Most courtship literature is a product of the psychological, rather than the sociological, tradition and often does not address the transition from courtship to marriage (for a thorough review of courtship literature, see Cate & Lloyd, 1992). Moreover, courtship has been studied more as a separate institution than as a stage in a process leading to marriage. Although there is some literature-primarily in the sociological tradition-addressing the decision to marry (e.g., Oppenheimer, 1988; Schoen & Kluegel, 1988; Schoen & Wooldredge, 1989), this literature does not account for whether unmarried respondents (especially noncohabiting respondents) are coupled. The issue of whether respondents are involved in a steady romantic relationship is a theoretically important one, as finding a serious romantic partner is a prerequisite for marriage in American society. If certain groups are found to be less likely to marry than other groups, it may be because members of those groups are less likely to wish to marry or more likely to be constrained from marrying, or it may be that they are less likely to be involved in a relationship that could potentially lead to marriage. Use of only those respondents known to be coupled eliminates one potential source of variation in marriage behavior. As cohabitation becomes increasingly prevalent (Bumpass & Lu, 2000; Bumpass & Sweet, 1989; Raley, 2000; Smock, 2000), it is an ever more important part of the American marriage formation process. Cohabitation is viewed by many researchers as a stage of courtship (for discussion, see Cherlin, 1992, and Seltzer, 2000), and some evidence indicates that many cohabitors also view their union as essentially part of premarital courtship (Bumpass, Sweet, & Cherlin, 1991; Sweet & Bumpass, 1992). Yet the courtship literature, especially in the psychological tradition, often does not discuss cohabitation as a variation of courtship, and the study of cohabitation rarely attempts to compare cohabitors to those in other types of premarital relationships. This paper offers a broad model of transitions to marriage among unmarried persons involved in romantic relationships (cohabiting and noncohabiting), with a focus on the role of the perceived costs and benefits of marriage. I examine the way that perceived costs and benefits of marriage may differ between cohabiting and noncohabiting partnered singles in ways that lead to differences in the likelihood of entry into marriage, using data from Waves 1 and 2 of the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH). …