Are First Co-Residential Partnerships Changing across Europe?

Bernice Kuang, University of Southampton
Brienna Perelli-Harris , University of Southampton
Ann Berrington, University of Southampton

Over the past few decades, the form, function, and meaning of first co-residential partnerships has changed dramatically across Europe. First partnerships used to start with marriage and were the primary setting for raising children, often lasting till the death of one partner. However, the increase in divorce, nonmarital cohabitation, nonmarital childbearing, and re-partnering has altered the nature of first partnerships, raising questions about their role in the lifecourse today. As cohabitation has become the main way of entering partnership, studying cohabitation solely in reference to marriage (i.e. time to marriage) or whether partnerships are cohabiting or married is insufficient to capture the changing nature of first partnerships. Here we use newly available Harmonized Histories data from the Generations and Gender Surveys (GGS) Round II, conducted between 2020-23 in 12 countries, which allows us to trace changes across birth cohorts- 1970-74, 1975-59, 1980-84 - who have yet to be studied as closely as older cohorts. We analyse standard indicators to understand first partnerships: timing, duration, and variation, and relative to marriage and childbearing. We find the mean age of first partnerships remains relatively young in most countries at around age 25 and the speed of entry into partnership is similar across countries. Most first partnerships continue to be relatively long lasting and are either intact or convert to marriage within 5 years, although there is variation across countries. Taken as a whole, this study paints a broad picture of first partnership formation in contemporary Europe.

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 Presented in Session 103. Singlehood and Partnerships across the Life Course