Mate Selection Reflection Paper
Chapter 6
Nonmarital Lifestyles: Living Alone, Cohabiting, and Other Options
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Chapter Outline
- What Does It Mean to Be Single?
- Reasons for More Unmarrieds
- Singles: Their Various Living Arrangements
- Cohabitation and Family Life
- Maintaining Supportive Social Networks and Life Satisfaction
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What Does It Mean to Be Single?
- Many college students think of “being single” as not being in a romantic relationship.
- Some believe that “being single” means to have never been married.
- To the U.S. Census Bureau, single simply means unmarried.
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Reasons for More Unmarrieds
- In 1970, fewer than 28% of U.S. adults were single; today, there are as many singles as married people.
- This change is due to a growing proportion of widowed elderly, a high divorce rate, young adults postponing marriage, along with a growing incidence of cohabitation.
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Marital Status of U.S. Population
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Marital Status of U.S. Population
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Reasons for More Unmarrieds
- Major reasons for more unmarrieds are due to several social factors: demographic, economic, technological, social, and cultural.
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Demographic, Economic, and Technological Changes
- The sex ratio (number of men to women in a given society or subgroup) influences marital options and singlehood.
- Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, the United States had more men than women.
- Today this is reversed due to changes in immigration patterns and greater improvement in women’s health.
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Demographic, Economic, and Technological Changes
- In 1910 there were nearly 106 men for every 100 women.
- In 2012, there were about 96 men for every 100 women.
- Beginning with middle-age, there are increasingly fewer men than women.
- Sex ratio differs somewhat for various racial/ethnic categories.
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Demographic, Economic, and Technological Changes
- Expanded educational and career options for college-educated women have led many to postpone marriage.
- Middle-aged, divorced women with careers tend to view marriage as a bad bargain once they have gained financial and sexual independence.
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Demographic, Economic, and Technological Changes
- The fact that many men’s earning potential has declined, relative to women’s, may make marriage less attractive to both genders.
- Growing economic disadvantage and uncertainty make marriage less available to many who might want to marry but feel they can’t financially afford it.
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Demographic, Economic, and Technological Changes
- With effective contraception, sexual relationships outside marriage, without great risk of unwanted pregnancy, became possible.
- New conception technologies offer the possibility for planned pregnancy to unpartnered heterosexual women as well as same-sex couples.
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Social and Cultural Changes
- Emerging adulthood: People spend more time in higher education or exploring career options than in the past.
- It is now widely accepted that young people will have sexual intercourse before marriage.
- As American culture gives greater weight to autonomy, many find that singlehood is more desirable than marriage.
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Social and Cultural Changes
- Being unmarried has become an acceptable option, rather than the deviant lifestyle that it was once thought to be.
- Cohabitation is emerging as a socially accepted alternative to marriage.
- Getting married is no longer the only way to gain adult status.
- Marriage has become less strongly defined as permanent.
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Singles: Their Various Living Arrangements
- Living Alone
- Living Apart Together
- Living with Parents
- Group or Communal Living
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Living Alone
- Individuals living alone make up over one-quarter of U.S. households—up from 8% in 1940.
- The likelihood of living alone increases with age in all racial/ethnic groups and is markedly higher for older women than for older men.
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Living Apart Together
- Living apart together (LAT): A couple is engaged in a long-term relationship but each partner maintains a separate dwelling.
- Difficult to ascertain number of these relationships, but it is clearly emerging in the U.S.
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Living with Parents
- The percentage of young adults living at home has increased dramatically since 2000.
- Reasons are both cultural and economic.
- Boomerangers—adult children who had previously left home but then returned.
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Living with Parents
- About 25% of boomerangers report the situation is bad for their relationship with their parents; 25% say it is good; 50% say it has not affected their relationship.
- About 60% of parents have positive things to say about their adult children moving back home.
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Living with Parents
- Some believe young people have been “coddled” and are unprepared for life as independent adults. Others cite the trend of “emerging adulthood” as a prime reason.
- Today’s parents may expect to serve as “collaborators” in their children’s transition to adulthood.
- However, conflict between parents and adult children can be an issue.
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Percentage men and women ages 18 to 34 living with a parent or relative
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Group or Communal Living
- Communes: Situations or places characterized by group living
- “Accordion” families provide economic and emotional/social functions.
- Communal living is designed to provide enhanced opportunities for social support and companionship.
- Financial considerations and the desire for companionship encourage romantically involved singles to share households.
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Cohousing
- Co-housing started in Denmark and spread to the United States in the early 1980s.
- Cohousing complexes typically provide private areas with communal kitchens and often have community gardens.
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Cohabitation and Family Life
- Cohabitation: Unmarried couples living together
- One of the most important changes in family life in the past 40 years
- By 2013, an estimated 65 percent of women aged 19 to 44 had cohabited—up from 33 percent in 1987.
- This trend is expected to increase.
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Percentage of women ages 19 to 44 who have ever cohabited, by age
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A Closer Look at Diversity
- The meaning of cohabitation varies along racial and ethnic lines.
- Puerto Ricans have a long history of consensual marriages.
- Exposure to other cultural systems changes norms of cohabitation acceptance.
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Cohabitating
- Cohabitation remains illegal in a handful of states.
- Cohabitation means different things to different people, but it is very much a family status, though one in which the levels of certainty about commitment are less than in marriage.
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Cohabitation: A four-stage process
- Stage 1: Vast majority of heterosexuals marry without cohabiting first.
- Stage 2: More people cohabit, but mainly as a form of courtship before marriage.
- Stage 3: Cohabiting becomes a socially acceptable alternative to marriage.
- Stage 4: Cohabitation and marriage become virtually indistinguishable.
- Social scientists believe the U.S. is currently transitioning from stage 2 to stage 3.
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Characteristics of Cohabiters
- Cohabiters are younger, less educated, earn less income, and are likely to have relatively permissive attitudes toward sex.
- Nonhispanic whites have a slightly higher rate of cohabitation than African Americans and Hispanics.
- About 75% of cohabiters are younger than 45, though the proportion of middle-aged cohabiters has increased over the past two decades.
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Why Do People Cohabit?
- As a prelude to marriage
- As an alternative to marriage
- As an alternative to being single
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The Cohabiting Relationship
- Cohabiters are less homogamous than marrieds and are twice as likely as marrieds to be interracial.
- For a variety of reasons, cohabiting relationships are relatively short-term.
- Relationship quality of “long-term” cohabiting couples (together for at least 4 years) differ little from marrieds in conflict levels, amount of interaction, or relationship satisfaction
- For both marrieds and long-term cohabiters, relationship satisfaction declines with the addition of children to the household.
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Cohabitation and Intimate Partner Violence
- More intimate partner violence among cohabitaters than among marrieds.
- Prominent selection effect exists.
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As We Make Choices: Some Things to Know about the Legal Side of Living Together
- Domestic Partners
- Residence
- Bank Accounts
- Power of Attorney for Finances
- Credit Cards
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- Property
- Insurance
- Wills and Living Trusts
- Health Care Decision Making
- Children
- Breaking Up
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Cohabitating Parents and Outcomes for Children
- More than half of all nonmarital births occur to cohabiting mothers.
- In 2015, 39% of cohabiting heterosexual households contain children under age 18.
- Having a child while cohabiting does not necessarily increase a couple’s odds of staying together, but conceiving a child during cohabitation and then marrying before the baby is born does increase union stability.
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Children’s Outcomes
- Instability with cohabitation (intermittent cohabitation) is related to problematic outcomes for children.
- Cohabiting parents spend less on their children’s education than do marrieds.
- Adolescents are more likely to experience earlier premarital intercourse, higher rates of school suspension, and antisocial and delinquent behaviors.
- Compared to single-parent homes, children do benefit economically.
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Cohabiting Same-Sex Couples
- There are about 800,000 same-sex couple households in the U.S. Nearly one-fifth have children.
- Twice as many female same-sex couples as male same-sex couples have children.
- About 80,000 same-sex couples are in civil unions or registered as domestic partners.
- Today, between 55-60% of Americans favor legal marriage for same-sex couples.
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Maintaining Supportive Social Networks and Life Satisfaction
- For singles, it’s important to develop and maintain supportive social networks of friends and family.
- Single people place high value on friendships, and they are also major contributors to community services and volunteer work.
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Maintaining Supportive Social Networks and Life Satisfaction
- Life satisfaction is associated with income as well as marital status.
- People in secure interpersonal heterosexual or same-sex relationships, and those who socialize often with friends and family, are happier than those who spend considerable time alone.
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Maintaining Supportive Social Networks and Life Satisfaction
- Living arrangements of unmarrieds form a continuum of social attachment; not all singles are socially unattached or isolated.
- Living alone can be lonesome. However, it does not necessarily imply a lack of social integration or meaningful connections with others.
- A crucial part of one’s support network involves valued friendships.
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