ABSTRACT
The chapter explores the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH), and provides a further look in that it follows the L. L. Bumpass and J. A. Sweet and Bumpass, Sweet, and A. Cherlin studies, which also used the NSFH. It explains the relationship between early cohabitation and first marriage from a life-course perspective, and shows how it has changed over time. A cohabitation ends when the partners either marry or separate. If marriage has become less important to economically independent women, it has also become less important to men. There is a widespread feeling that a fundamental change in American marriage patterns is taking place. Not only are marriage rates declining sharply but there has been an extraordinary increase in the number of couples who are living together without being married. Data for the United States that allow cohabitation to be studied in any detail have only become available.
