Marriage and Cohabitation

Editor: Justin Healey
ISBN 978 1 921507 14 4
Year 2010

Price: $20.95

  

Marriage and Cohabitation
Volume 304, Issues in Society

The proportion of adults living with a partner in Australia has declined from 65% in 1986 to 61% in 2006. Registered marriage also declined over the past two decades from 62% in 1986 to 52%. On the other hand, there has been an increase in de facto relationships from 4% to 9% in this period. ‘Marriage and Cohabitation’ explores Australians’ changing attitudes towards, and growing acceptance of, relationships outside of registered marriage, and includes a look at government recognition of same-sex relationships and the debate over gay marriage. What is the future of committed relationships, and what are the social impacts of modern day partnering?

Glossary; Fast Facts; Web Links; Index



fast facts
FAST FACTS from this volume
  • Couple relationships provide people with love, companionship, support, and opportunities for having children and raising families. As such, couples are a fundamental building block of society. Changing social attitudes during the late 20th century have led to an increase in de facto and same-sex relationships as well as giving people more freedom to end relationships, start new relationships or remain single.
  • The proportion of adults living with a partner has declined during the last two decades, from 65% in 1986, to 61% in 2006. Factors such as the trend towards partnering at a later age, and the increased financial and social independence of women, may be associated with this decline, as well as legal changes in recent decades which have improved access to divorce.
  • Consistent with the declining proportion of people in couple relationships has been the fall in the proportion who were in a registered marriage, from 62% in 1986 to 52% in 2006. On the other hand, there has been an increase in the proportion of adults in de facto relationships, which more than doubled from 4% to 9% over the period.
  • The number of people living in a same-sex couple relation-ship has increased over the past decade. In 1996, 0.2% of all adults said they were living with a same-sex partner. By 2006, this had increased to 0.4% (to around 50,000 people). However, these figures may be an undercount of the true number of people living in same-sex relationships. Some people may be reluctant to identify as being in a same-sex relationship, while others may not have identified because they didn’t know that same-sex relationships would be counted in the census.
  • According to the 2006-07 Family Characteristics and Transitions Survey, 84% of adults had had at least one marriage or de facto relationship. For those aged under 35 years, women were more likely to have had a partner than men (66% and 55% respectively). For people aged 35 years or over 95% had had at least one marriage or de facto relationship. This included 18% who had two relationships and 7% who had three or more.
  • Although men aged 35 years or over were slightly less likely than women to have ever been in a relationship (94% of men compared with 96% of women) they were more likely to have had three or more relationships (8.4% compared with 4.8% for women).
  • Overall, 39% of married people in 2006-07 had lived with their partner before marriage. The propensity to live together before marriage has increased sharply over recent decades as de facto relationships have become an increasingly common precursor to marriage. For example, almost three-quarters (74%) of people who married in the 2000s lived together before marrying. In contrast, just 3% of people who married in the 1960s (and are still married) lived together first.
  • Almost half of those living in opposite-sex de facto relationships in 2006-07 expected to marry their partner (44%). The proportion expecting to marry noticeably declines with increasing length of relationship beyond ten years. Compared with the median time that currently married people spent living together before marriage (2.0 years), people in de facto relationships expecting to marry will spend significantly longer in the de facto state given the median length of relationship for people intending to marry was 3.0 years.
  • People in de facto relationships who had been married before were significantly less likely to expect to marry their new partner than people who had never been married. Around one-quarter (26%) of people in a de facto relationship who were separated, divorced or widowed from a previous spouse intended to marry their current partner, compared with 50% of people in a de facto relationship who had never been previously married. Much of this difference was still apparent even after accounting for differences in the length of relationship between the two groups.
  • As higher rates of de facto relationships emerge, so too a greater proportion of people are having children outside of marriage. In the five years to 2007, close to one-third (32%) of all births have been to unmarried mothers, twice the average rate of the 1980s (16%).
  • Changes in social attitudes in recent decades have led to greater acceptance of couple relationships outside of registered marriage, such as de facto and same-sex relationships. At the same time, broader social, economic and educational opportunities have become more accessible to most people (particularly women), which has made remaining single a more viable option.
  • For some people, couple relationships outside of marriage may provide an opportunity to test the suitability of the match before making the commitment of marriage, whereas others may see no need to formalise what is for them a long-term and committed relationship.
  • Australian Bureau of Statistics data on age-specific death rates in Australia per thousand per age group clearly shows that married people have lower death rates than non-married people in almost all age groups, for both men and women. The real spike appears in the 70-84 group with the death rate for single people almost double than married men and women.
  • A nationwide survey of 1100 respondents carried out by Galaxy Research found females (68%) were more likely to support gay marriage than males (53%), while Australians aged 16 to 24 (74%) were more likely to agree than those aged 25 to 34 (71%), 35-49 (68%) or 50 and over (45%). Greens voters (82%) were more likely to agree than those who vote for the ALP (64%) and the Coalition (50%). Attitudes also split according to income levels. While 66% of white-collar workers backed the change, that figure fell to 55% for blue-collar workers.
  • The Australian Institute of Family Studies has published an analysis of 2006 census data that shows 35% of women aged 30 to 34 are single – neither married nor living with a partner. For men the proportion is 41%. Among women aged 35-39, it is 31% and for men 35%.