The October 2015 edition of the journal, Demography, includes a Cornell study that claims premarital births no longer have detrimental effects as long as couples marry after the child is born. “Change in the Stability of Marital and Cohabitating Unions Following the Birth of a Child” is based on the 1995 and 2006 to 2010 results of the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG). This datum, however, is contradictory to the findings of studies conducted by the National Council on Family Relations (NCFR).
Kelly Musick, one of the leading professors of the Cornell study, says, “Results support the notion that cohabitation has become a more normative part of the family formation process.” Cohabitation has, indeed, become a more accepted living arrangement in the two decades, but it does not promote the formation of a familial unit.
The negative effects of cohabitation are revealed in an NCFR article, “Sliding Versus Deciding: Inertia and the Premarital Cohabitation Effect.” Scholars of NSFG established the concept of “relationship inertia,” the central idea that “some couples who otherwise would not have married end up married partly because they cohabit.” This lack of commitment proved, in another NSFG study, to be the cause of “poorer communication, lower relationship satisfaction, higher levels of domestic violence, and divorce.” Add the presence of a child, and cohabitating couples do not, as the Cornell study contends, “show statistically indistinguishable separation risks” from couples who have children within the confines of marriage.
Experts at Cornell found that couples care less about timing for marriage and parenthood than ever before. Releasing these inhibitions, however, is not a product of cohabitation being “less risky.” It is a product of the United States’ government socially and economically enabling, and even encouraging, people without any obligation to traditional conventions.
A total of about 151 million Americans, over half of the country, now receive government subsidies, which is an all-time high, according to Forbes.com. This increase is especially true for unmarried parents with children. Reported by the Heritage Foundation, the graphic below depicts the detrimental effect that cohabitation has on children. While unmarried parents with children only make up 26.6 percent of the non-poor demography, they are 70.8 percent of the poor family demographic.
This information illustrates the dependency of cohabitating parents on government aid. If these couples are continually supported by the government to maintain their accustomed way of life, what would persuade them to establish legal responsibilities that restrict them to one lifelong partner? After all, just as cohabitation is more acceptable than ever, so is the fluidity of sexual partners. In an age when half of all marriages end in divorce, cohabitating parents supported by government subsidies are not going to realize a necessity to work harder or to risk the cost of an expensive divorce process.
Cohabitation is an increasingly popular, socially acceptable choice for American couples. Once a baby is factored into the equation, however, that choice is only self-interested. The risks of cohabitation before marriage do not disappear because a baby is present as Cornell experts would like to believe. The risks are, instead, magnified and complicated by the responsibilities of child-rearing. Poor communication and lower relationship satisfaction between previously cohabitating couples spill onto the lives of their children. Studies show that high levels of domestic violence and divorce in cohabitation-to-marriage couples create emotional, social, and economic distress for children, which does not occur when parents marry before having children.
Cornell’s study claims that having a baby for marriage is now “less risky.” There should be an addendum that includes for whom this practice is less risky. There is no decrease in risk for the American public. As long as cohabitating couples are bolstered by the government, their reliance upon American tax dollars will increase. Children born to cohabitating parents do not experience less risk. Even if their parents eventually marry, which is statistically unlikely, their quality of life is challenged because of strains on the entire familial relationship. There is risk, most pointedly, for the cohabitating couple. There is no relationship with comparable success to that of married couples who never cohabitated.
Conclusively, the people reporting less risk are those couples who unjustifiably accept government subsidies, eradicating opportunities for their children, as they ignore the statistics that prove the damaging effect cohabitation has on the family institution.
