Family and Relationships: New Study Explores Adolescent Expectations About Marriage

As divorce rates among their parents' generation continue to soar, today's teens increasingly see cohabitation as an option when they envision family and relationships. But how deep-seated is this trend, and what does it mean for the institution of marriage? Researchers at Bowling Green State University recently embarked on a study to find out.nnTheir conclusions, published in the August 2007 issue of the Journal of Marriage and Family, have interesting implications. While they found that roughly three quarters of high school seniors cherish the goal of a strong, happy marriage and family, many of them have begun to accept the idea of cohabitation as an acceptable way to test a relationship before making it permanent. However, the researchers observed a number of significant correlations:nn* Teens that date and are sexually active are more open than their peers to the idea of cohabitation before marriage, except when their parents intervene and communicate reasons for avoiding sex.nn* Teens with high juvenile delinquency scores initially have the highest expectation of cohabiting.nn* Teens with strong educational goals and better grades are less likely to consider cohabiting.nn* Teens with more highly educated mothers are less open to cohabitation.nn* Family economics showed a marked effect on cohabitation expectations in teens: those from families with higher incomes were less likely to aspire to cohabitation than those from families with lower incomes.n n* When controlling for all variables, teens whose parents talk to their children and transmit their reasons for postponing sex are less likely to consider cohabitation before marriage.n n* Race and ethnicity was not a significant factor in expectations to cohabit. nnDespite the fact that more than half of the teens studied expected to cohabit and to marry, the study concluded that "adolescents are not rejecting marriage as evidenced by their expectations to marry." The researchers added that, "these findings suggest that marriage is here to stay as a social institution and as an aspired status marker." Nevertheless, considering all their findings, they qualified their study with the statement that, "efforts aimed at promoting marriage should consider tracing back to the origins of expectations for marriage and recognize that expectations for behavior develop early in the life course."nnn