Race, Ethnic, and Nativity Differences in the Demographic Significance of Cohabitation in Women’s Lives

Abstract

Using pooled data from the 1995 and 2002 NSFGs, we compare three aspects of women’s first unions – the timing and type of first union, fertility in cohabitation and marriage, and the duration and outcome of first cohabitation – for U.S.-born Whites, Blacks, Mexican Americans, and foreign-born Mexicans. Differences in cohabiting behaviors are most pronounced between foreign-born Mexicans and women born in the United States. Although foreign-born Mexicans favor marriage, the foreign-born Mexican women who do cohabit treat cohabitation as a substitute for legal marriage, bearing children in these unions and remaining with their partner without marrying him. Cohabitation is more likely to be a short-lived union that is a precursor to marriage for Whites. For Blacks cohabitation is also short-term, but as a transition between periods of singlehood, and less often as a step toward marriage. Cohabitation patterns of U.S.-born Mexican Americans are between those of foreign-born Mexican Americans and White women born in the United States, suggesting that family norms from sending communities erode with prolonged exposure to U.S. family life.