The Rise of Cohabitation and Childbearing outside Marriage in Western Europe†

In many western European nations there have been dramatic recent rises in unmarried cohabitation and having children outside marriage. Here we examine the extent and depth of these changes across nations. Our analysis includes an examination of type of first partnership, duration of cohabiting unions, characteristics of cohabitants, and dissolution risks of different types of unions. We also examine the partnership context within which children are born, the extent to which children born to cohabiting parents see the marriage of their parents, as well as the variation in dissolution probabilities associated with different partnership histories. The analysis shows that there is not one but several European perspectives on the rise of cohabitation and non-marital childbearing.