cohabitation

• 3 reasons for cohabitation 


  temporary and informal arrangement

  alternative or substitute of marriage without legal constraints etc

  preparation for trial marriage
• cohabitation definition


  couples who live together in intimate relationships, without being married
• cohabitation statistics 


  2019 - 2.2million opposite sex cohabitating families

  ONS - number of cohabitating couple families is growing faster than married couple families, up 26% in the past decade

  estimated number of people cohabitating doubled between 1996 and 2012

  2021 = 3.6 million , 144% increase from 1996

  75% of cohabitating couples intend to marry eachother
• changing role of women and increase in cohabitation

  marriage has become less of a financial necessity for women and cohabitation provides an alternative relationship for personal fulfilment without legal, financial and housework commitments

  avoids potential complexity and bitterness of legally unravelling finance, housing etc and disputes over children involved in marriage breakdown
• changing social attitudes and reduced social stigma and increase in cohabitation

  young people more likely to cohabit than older people

  reflect evidence that older people are more likely to view living together outside of marriage as always wrong - reveals more easy going attitudes to cohabitation among the young, showing reduced social stigma

  may also be influenced by growing secularisation

  decline in stigma attached to sex outside of marriage - 1989 44% said premarital sex was acceptable, compared to 65% in 2012
• secularisation and increase in cohabitation

  young people with no religion are more likely to cohabit than those with a religion
• post modernist approach to cohabitating

  fluidity of family and increase in individualism means people can choose whether they want to marry or not

  in favour of cohabitation as reflects pick n mix identities, free will and empowerment
• functionalist approach to cohabitating

  prefer marriage as cohabitation is less stable, and the nuclear family is what is needed in society

  GOODE - conflict has increased due to isolation of family and kin, due to decline of nuclear family and increase of couples cohabitating
• feminist approach to cohabitating


  in favour of it, doesn't entail the patriarchal dimensions of the family associated with marriage

  it is a movement of resistance against patriarchal structures in the family

  SHELTON AND JOHN - women who cohabit do less housework than married counterparts
• new right approach to cohabitating

  intolerant of diversity in family

  increase in cohabitation has meant the nuclear family is declining and there is higher rates of crime and deviance

  believe nuclear family and married parents are essential for stability of children