# FORMATION AND STABILITY OF MARITAL AND COHABITING UNIONS

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON · 1994 · $194,206

## Abstract

Under this continuation of HD22433, we will use the second wave of the
National Survey of Families and Households to extend our research on union
formation and dissolution with an explicit focus on the implications of
cohabitation for family boundaries and for our conceptual and analytic
family nomenclature. Among the major advantages of this data set are: l)
The depth of the 1987-88 (T1) measures on family attitudes and behaviors;
2) Data from both males and females; and 3) Data from both partners for
the analysis of marriage among cohabiters and union disruption among both
cohabiting and married couples.

We have four specific aims. 1) The Formation of Unions Among Unmarried
Persons at T1: For noncohabiting persons, transitions to first
cohabitation or first marriage will be examined in relation to T1
attitudes towards cohabitation and marriage, background, resources, and
life-course variables including measures of T1 dating behavior. For
cohabiters, transitions to marriage will be examined in the above
framework adding relationship quality. Transitions to marriage will then
examined for all unmarried. 2) All Cohabitation and Marriage Transitions
Between Interviews: Educational, and employment changes between interviews
will be added as time-varying covariates to predict cohabitation from not
being in a union and marriage from both cohabitation and not-in-union.  3)
Non marital Childbearing in the Context of Cohabitation and Marriage
Timing: including cohabitation as a time-varying covariate, we will
examine how background factors and T1 resources (such as education and
income) affect the risk of a nonmarital birth through T1 attitudes and
cohabitation and marriage patterns. The inclusion of standard measures of
fertility planning in NSFH2 will allow us to differentiate between planned
and unplanned births in this analysis. 4) Cohabitation and Union
Stability: First, the higher disruption rate of marriages preceded by
cohabitation will be examined by models including measures of relationship
quality and orientations towards marriage and divorce.  Second, using
comparable measures on relationship quality drawn from both partners, the
stability of cohabiting and married couples of similar durations will be
examined.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 2198529
- **Project number:** 2R01HD022433-05A2
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON
- **SAM.gov UEI:** LCLSJAGTNZQ7
- **Principal Investigator:** LARRY L BUMPASS
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 1994
- **Award amount:** $194,206
- **Award type:** 2
- **Project period:** 1987-01-01 → 1997-12-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/2198529

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 2198529, FORMATION AND STABILITY OF MARITAL AND COHABITING UNIONS (2R01HD022433-05A2). Retrieved via MORVS 2026-10-24 from https://api.morvs.ai/grant/nih/2198529. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*