Currently cohabiting: relationship attitudes, intentions and behaviour

Abstract

Non-marital cohabitation is heterogeneous and evolving, but information on relationship intentions of cohabiters are absent from most large-scale surveys. Attitude and intention data are collected from current cohabitors in the BHPS. Analysis of successive BHPS waves explores relationship intentions of current cohabitors, integrating event history analyses of relationship intentions with responses about the advantages and disadvantages of cohabitation. Successive BHPS waves permits tracing and reconstruction of relationship biographies of individuals and couples. How do relationship intentions vary by socio-demographic characteristics? How do intra-couple relationship intentions vary? Do individuals or couples achieve their relationship intentions? How persistent are individual's and couple's relationship intentions? What factors explain changing relationship intentions over time? What influence do intervening events have on changes in attitudes to cohabitation? These analyses move beyond a study of what happens when and to whom, and contribute to understanding why individual trajectories have evolved.