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Currently Cohabiting: Relationship Attitudes, Intentions and Behaviour

Researchers

Ernestina Coast

Ernestina Coast
Social Policy, London School of Economics


Email:e.coast@lse.ac.uk

web:http://personal.lse.ac.uk/coast/

Abstract:

Non-marital cohabitation is heterogeneous and evolving, and changes in attitudes to cohabitation have been noted. Absent from most large-scale attitudinal studies is information from cohabiters and relationship intentions of current cohabiters have received little attention; an empirical oversight. Using successive rounds of attitude and intention data in the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) from current cohabiters, analyses of both individual- and couple-level responses will be contextualised within longitudinal relationship, fertility and socio-economic histories. Analysis of successive BHPS waves will explore the relationship intentions of currently cohabiting couples, and the study will integrate event history analyses of cohabiters' relationship intentions with their responses about the advantages and disadvantages of cohabitation. Question repeat in BHPS waves will permit tracing and reconstruction of relationship biographies of individuals and couples.

The main research questions focus on currently cohabiting couples:  How do relationship intentions vary by socio-demographic characteristics (including gender)? How do intra-couple relationship intentions vary among currently cohabiting couples? Do homogamous couples have stronger concordance in their intentions? Do individuals or couples achieve their relationship intentions? How persistent are individual's and couple's relationship intentions over time? What factors explain changing relationship intentions over time? How do attitudes to cohabitation vary by socio-demographic characteristics? How do attitudes about cohabitation interact with relationship intentions? Do attitudes to cohabitation persist over time? What influence do intervening events have on changes in attitudes to cohabitation? This research will be able not just to study what happens when and to whom, but also contribute to an understanding of why individual trajectories have evolved.

Department:

Department of Social Policy, London School of Economics

Duration:

01/06 - 08/07

Grant Type:

Research Fellowship

Publications

Ernestina Coasts's Research Findings (PDF)

Coast, E. (Forthcoming) Currently cohabiting: relationship attitudes and intentions in the BHPS, to be submitted to Population Trends.

Coast, E. (Forthcoming) Honourable intentions: the use of survey data in demography, to be submitted to Social Science Research.

Coast, E. (Forthcoming) Attitudes towards intimate relationships: four decades’ of trends in the UK, to be submitted to Journal of Marriage and the Family.

Stillwell, J., Coast, E. and Kneale, D. (eds.) (2009) Fertility, Living Arrangements, Care and Mobility, Understanding Population Trends and Processes Volume 1, Springer, Dordrecht.

Coast, E. (2009) Chapter In Stillwell, J., Coast, E. and Kneale, D. (eds.) Fertility, Living Arrangements, Care and Mobility, Understanding Population Trends and Processes Volume 1, Springer, Dordrecht.

Presentations

Coast, E. (2008) Presentation at the 2008 Population Association of America Conference, New Orleans.

Coast, E. (2008) Presentation at the 2008 European Association of Population Studies Conference, Barcelona.

Coast, E. (2006) Currently cohabiting: relationship attitudes, intentions and behaviour, Presentation at UPTAP session at the RGS-IBG Annual Conference, The Royal Geographical Society with IBG, London, 30 August - 1st September.