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Title: Comparing the Benefits of Cohabitation and Marriage for Health and Happiness in Mid-Life: Is the Relationship Similar Across Countries?
Resulting in 1 citation.
1. Perelli-Harris, Brienna
Styrc, Marta
Addo, Fenaba
Lappegard, Trude
Sassler, Sharon
Evans, Ann
Comparing the Benefits of Cohabitation and Marriage for Health and Happiness in Mid-Life: Is the Relationship Similar Across Countries?
Presented: Washington DC, Population Association of America Annual Meeting, March-April 2016
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Population Association of America
Keyword(s): Australia, Australian; British Cohort Study (BCS); Cohabitation; Cross-national Analysis; Health/Health Status/SF-12 Scale; Life Satisfaction; Marriage; Norway, Norwegian; Propensity Scores

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Previous research has found that marriage conveys benefits to individuals, but with recent increases in cohabitation, it is no longer clear that marriage per se matters, compared to living in a co-residential partnership. This association is especially unclear in countries where cohabitation is becoming widespread, such as Australia, the UK, the US, and Norway. Here we compare differences between married and cohabiting people with respect to self-rated health and life satisfaction in mid-life. Our surveys - the Australian HILDA, Norwegian GGS, UK BCS70 and US NLSY - include a mix of longitudinal and retrospective questions, allowing us to match individuals on socio-economic background and childhood family structure. Using Propensity Score Matching, we examine current partnership type and long-term cohabiting unions vs. long-term marriages. Preliminary results show that marriage is positively associated with health and happiness in countries where cohabitation is less regulated and more selective of childhood disadvantage.
Bibliography Citation
Perelli-Harris, Brienna, Marta Styrc, Fenaba Addo, Trude Lappegard, Sharon Sassler and Ann Evans. "Comparing the Benefits of Cohabitation and Marriage for Health and Happiness in Mid-Life: Is the Relationship Similar Across Countries?" Presented: Washington DC, Population Association of America Annual Meeting, March-April 2016.