March

A brief report prepared for the Council on Contemporary Families by Arielle Kuperberg, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Experts recommend we delay, protect, and look for more change in the future.

Cohabitation doesn’t cause divorce and probably never did. What leads to divorce is when people move in with someone – with or without a marriage license – before they have the maturity and experience to choose compatible partners and to conduct themselves in ways that can sustain a long-term relationship. Early entry into marriage or cohabitation, especially prior to age 23, is the critical risk factor for divorce.

For more than 20 years, researchers have reported that premarital cohabitation is associated with an elevated risk of divorce. Yet these findings have failed to deter young people from “shacking up.” Senior CCF Scholar Arielle Kuperberg’s research finds that previous studies have overstated the divorce risk from premarital cohabitation by ignoring how old the individuals are when they move in together.