Cohabitation and Children
How do children living with cohabiting parents fare compared to those living with married parents? Does it make any difference?
There are nearly 5 million cohabiting couples in the United States today and 41 percent of these homes have children living in them, up from 21% in 1987.1 A recent estimate claims that nearly half of all children today will spend some time in a cohabiting family by age 16.2 Gone are the days when cohabitation was a temporary setting primarily consisting of premarital young people or college students. As we experience the growth of “permanent” cohabiting situations, we must ask whether cohabiting homes provide a good environment for children?
The overwhelming majority of children (63% by one estimate) living in cohabiting homes are theproduct of a previous union, rather than the current cohabiting one. This means most children in cohabiting situations are living with a biological mother and a non-biological male.3 This is cause for great concern.
A major study of ten thousand individuals found that when children in the home belong to only one of the partners, the one who has the children claims this situation “markedly increases the expectation of marriage and decreases the expectation of never marrying.” The researchers report this increases the likelihood of argument in the relationship and actually further lowers the expectation of marriage from the partner without children.4 This is because we are not typically inclined to make investment in children that are not our own.
Sexual and Physical Abuse of Children
One of the biggest threats to children living in cohabiting situations is abuse and violence. A special issue of the Journal of Comparative Family Studies, addressing family violence, reports that “children living with a caretaker other than two biological parents are at greater risk of child maltreatment.”5 A recent study published in Pediatrics indicated that children residing in a home with an nonbiologically related adult were 8 times more likely to die of maltreatment than children living with 2 biological parents.6 Even though boyfriends provide only a small percentage of all nonparental child care, 64 percent of all nonparental abuse is committed by boyfriends, leading researchers to conclude, “A young child left with a mother’s boyfriend experiences substantially elevated risk of abuse.”7 An additional study reveals that “a number of studies have shown that girls living with nonnatal fathers [boyfriends and stepfathers] are at higher risk for sexual abuse than girls living with natal fathers.”8
The National Marriage Project warns, “the evidence suggests that the most unsafe of all family environments for children is that in which the mother is living with someone other than the child’s biological father.”9
Problem Behavior
Several studies have found the children living with a mother and her unmarried partner show significantly higher levels of problem behavior at home and school, as well as lower academic performance than children living in intact families.10 Other studies indicate that children living with cohabiting parents have important well being outcome measures more similar to children living with single and remarried parents than those living with married parents.11 Professor Linda Waite explains that children in cohabiting homes suffer significantly poorer mental health than children living with married parents.12
Poverty
The poverty rate for children with married parents is about 6%, while it is about 31% for children living with cohabiting parents. For children living with a single parent, the rate is 45%.13
Weak Relationships Hurt Children
Finally, another significant threat to children living in cohabiting situations is the volatility of the relationship (See How Healthy Are Cohabiting Relationships?). This creates a more volatile home life for children. We know how deeply damaging divorce is for children and the negative consequences actually grow worse in early adulthood.
For those children living with both unmarried parents, three quarters of these children will see their parents break up before they reach the age of sixteen. Only a third of children born to married parents will see their parents divorce.14
To be concerned for the welfare of children is to be concerned about the dramatic growth of cohabitation as a domestic life choice for Americans. We should realize that cohabitation does not lead to a happy, healthy life for our children or ourselves.
1 David Popenoe and Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, Should We Live Together? What Young Adults Need to Know about Cohabitation Before Marriage, The National Marriage Project, Rutgers University, 2002, p. 8.
2 Popenoe and Whitehead, 2002, p. 8.
3 Deborah Graefe and Daniel Lichter, “Life Course Transition of American Children: Parental Cohabitation, Marriage, and Single Motherhood,” Demography 36 (1999): 205-217.
4 Larry Bumpass, James A. Sweet, and Andrew Cherlin, “The Role of Cohabitation in Declining Marriage Rates,” Journal of Marriage and the Family 53 (1991): 913-927.
5 Catherine Malkin and Michael Lamb, “Child Maltreatment: A Test of Sociobiological Theory,” Journal of Comparative Family Studies 25 (1994): 121-133.
6 Michael Stiffman, et al., “Household Composition and Risk of Fatal Child Maltreatment,” Pediatrics, 109 (2002): 615-621.
7 Leslie Margolin, “Child Abuse and Mother’s Boyfriends: Why the Overrepresentation?” Child Abuse and Neglect 16 (1992): 541-551.
8 Michael Gordon and Susan J. Creighton, “Natal and Nonnatal Fathers as Sexual Abusers in the United Kingdom: A Comparative Analysis,” Journal of Marriage and the Family 50 (1988): 99.
9 Popenoe and Whitehead, 2002, p. 8.
10 Popenoe and Whitehead, 2002, p. 8.
11 Donna Ruane Morrison and Amy Ritualo, “Routes Children’s Economic Recovery After Divorce: Are Cohabitation and Remarriage Equivalent?” American Sociological Review 65 (2000): 560-580; Wendy Manning and Daniel Lichter, “Parental Cohabitation and Children’s Economic Well-Being,” Journal of Marriage and the Family 58 (1996): 998-1010.
12 Linda J. Waite and Maggie Gallagher, The Case for Marriage: Why Married People are Happier, Healthier, and Better Off Financially, (New York: Doubleday 2000), p. 132.
13 Manning and Lichter, 1996.
14 Popenoe and Whitehead, 2002, p. 8; Larry Bumpass and Hsien-Hen Lu, “Trends in Cohabitation and Implications for Children’s Family Contexts in the U.S.” Population Studies 54 (2000) 29-41.
Glenn T. Stanton is Director of Social Research and Cultural Affairs and Senior Analyst for Marriage and Sexuality at Focus on the Family. He is also author of Why Marriage Matters: Reasons to Believe in Marriage in Postmodern Society (Pinon Press), and more recently, My Crazy, Imperfect Christian Family (NavPress, 2004). He also co-authored the book, Marriage on Trial: The Case Against Same-Sex Marriage and Parenting (Inter-Varsity Press, 2004)
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