Independent Gal
Ideal_Rock
- Joined
- Nov 12, 2006
- Messages
- 5,471
Did anyone else see this article in The Economist magazine last week about statistical trends in marriage in America? The whole thing is interesting but there was a part that I thought might be particularly interesting to LIW''s. Stastics don''t describe every relationship of course! They just speak to probabilities.
Here is the URL from which this text is taken:
http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9218127
And here is the part I thought you''d find interesting:
"...on average the children of co-habiting couples do worse by nearly every measure. One reason is that such relationships are less stable than marriages. In America, they last about two years on average. About half end in marriage. But those who live together before marriage are more likely to divorce.
...Two-thirds of American children born to co-habiting parents who later marry will see their parents split up by the time they are ten. Those born within wedlock face only half that risk.
The likeliest explanation is inertia, says Scott Stanley of the Centre for Marital and Family Studies at the University of Denver, Colorado. Couples start living together because it is more fun (and cheaper) than living apart. One partner may see this as a prelude to marriage. The other—usually the man—may see it as something more temporary. Since no explicit commitment is made, it is easier to drift into living together than it is to drift into a marriage. But once a couple is living together, it is harder to split up than if they were merely dating. So “many of these men end up married to women they would not have married if they hadn''t been living together,” says Mr Stanley, co-author of a paper called “Sliding versus deciding”. "
Here is the URL from which this text is taken:
http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9218127
And here is the part I thought you''d find interesting:
"...on average the children of co-habiting couples do worse by nearly every measure. One reason is that such relationships are less stable than marriages. In America, they last about two years on average. About half end in marriage. But those who live together before marriage are more likely to divorce.
...Two-thirds of American children born to co-habiting parents who later marry will see their parents split up by the time they are ten. Those born within wedlock face only half that risk.
The likeliest explanation is inertia, says Scott Stanley of the Centre for Marital and Family Studies at the University of Denver, Colorado. Couples start living together because it is more fun (and cheaper) than living apart. One partner may see this as a prelude to marriage. The other—usually the man—may see it as something more temporary. Since no explicit commitment is made, it is easier to drift into living together than it is to drift into a marriage. But once a couple is living together, it is harder to split up than if they were merely dating. So “many of these men end up married to women they would not have married if they hadn''t been living together,” says Mr Stanley, co-author of a paper called “Sliding versus deciding”. "