The marriage panic. Again.
by digby
Regarding that hysterical NY Times article about cohabitation ruining marriage, well, there's more to the study it relies on than the author reveals:
- Many of the media reports about the study exaggerate the link between cohabitation and divorce. The study found a small difference (9%) in the rate of divorce in the first ten years for spouses who cohabited before marriage compared to those who didn't. However, many other studies find that most or all of this link is explained by the differences between the kinds of people who cohabit and those who don't. Since most couples who marry today are already living together, those who don't are a more religious, conservative group with different divorce patterns. As sociologist Judith Seltzer wrote in a 2000 article in the Journal of Marriage and the Family, "Claims that individuals who cohabit before marriage hurt their chances of a good marriage pay too little attention to this evidence."
- The study did not demonstrate that cohabitation causes people to have a higher divorce rate. The two factors are correlated, but that doesn't mean that one necessarily caused the other. As CNN.com reported, "One of the study's authors said the report did not draw the conclusion that living together before marriage was the cause of the relationship ending. 'It may not be the experience of cohabiting but the people who cohabit,' said William Mosher. 'What we're saying about that is that we think that couples who cohabit before marriage may have different values than couples who do not," he said.'"
- The researchers found much larger differences in divorce rates for other factors they considered. While there was a 9% difference in the ten-year divorce rate between couples who cohabited and those who didn't, the difference was 30% by family income (couples with an income of $50,000 or more are much less likely to get divorced), 24% by age at marriage (women who marry when they're 25 or older are less likely to divorce), 14% by religion (religious women are less likely to divorce), and 13% by education (women with education beyond high school are less likely to divorce).
- The study considered only women ages 15-44.
Obviously, the real lesson here is that any educated person over 25 who makes more than $50,000 should go ahead an cohabitate. Young people, on the other hand, might want to concentrate on getting an education, building their careers and dating rather than thinking too much about marriage. Or everyone can become more religious and get married before they graduate from high school.
If any of that sounds familiar, it's because it's been common sense forever and it's how it already works. Panic averted.
h/t to MS