Changes in the Satisfaction of Cohabitors Relative to Spouses Over Time

• Author: Elena Pirani,Daniele Vignoli
• Date: 01 June 2016
• Published date: 01 June 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12287

E P  D V University of Florence

Changes in the Satisfaction of Cohabitors Relative

to Spouses Over Time

Family scholars have noted a gap in the sub-

jective well-being of cohabitors relative to

spouses and have hypothesized that the size of

this “cohabitation gap” varies depending on

how far cohabitation has diffused in a society.

For the rst time we test this hypothesis across

time in a single country, Italy, by analyzing

20 cross-sectional, nationally representative

surveys collected from 1993 to 2013 by the

Italian Institute of Statistics (N=279,190 part-

nered young adults). We nd that differences in

the assessments of family satisfaction between

cohabitors and spouses have eroded over the

years and that there has been no detectable

cohabitation gap since 2011. In addition, we

illustrate that the weakening of the cohabitation

gap is attributable to the diffusion of cohabiting

unions in Italian society.

Over the past decades, the number of couples

who are cohabiting, or living together in an

intimate union without marriage, has been

increasing in many Western societies (Bumpass

& Lu, 2000; Kiernan, 2002; Perelli-Harris et al.,

2012). A central path of inquiry is whether

there is a gap in the subjective well-being of

cohabitors relative to married people, or a

so-called cohabitation gap (Soons & Kalmijn,

University of Florence, VialeMorgagni, 59, 50134

Florence, Italy (pirani@disia.uni.it;

vignoli@disia.uni.it).

KeyWords: cohabitation, cross-timecomparisons, marriage,

satisfaction.

2009). Some studies have reported that cohab-

itors have lower levels of life satisfaction and

happiness and higher levels of depression than

married people (Kim & McKenry, 2002; Kur-

dek, 1991; Soons & Kalmijn, 2009), and others

have found that cohabitors are less committed

to and satised with their partnerships than

their married counterparts are (e.g., Brown &

Booth, 1996; Nock, 1995; Stanley, Whitton, &

Markman, 2004; Stutzer & Frey, 2006).

There is evidence of spatial variation in the

size of this cohabitation gap, however. Previous

authors have shown that the gap is smaller in

countries where cohabitation is more popular

than in countries where this type of union is

still a marginal phenomenon (Soons & Kalmijn,

2009; Wiik, Keizer, & Lappegård, 2012). They

explained these cross-national differences in

light of the level of diffusion of cohabitation

in a society: In countries where the practice of

cohabitation is more common and accepted,

differences in the satisfaction levels between

cohabitors and spouses tend to be smaller. In a

similar vein, the diffusion of cohabitation has

been suggested to reduce differences in union

dissolution risks across union types (Liefbroer

& Dourleijn, 2006). So far, however, the evi-

dence that this is the case has been only indirect,

because inferences were made by comparing

countries with different levels of diffusion of

cohabitation.

This study provides direct evidence to eval-

uate whether the size of the cohabitation gap

declines as cohabitation diffuses in a single

country, Italy, a place where cohabitation does

not yet represent an integral part of family

598 Journal of Marriage and Family 78 (June 2016): 598–609

DOI:10.1111/jomf.12287