Overview

Abstract (English)

Postmodern socioeconomic and ideological developments have brought about dramatic partnership transformations, including the decline in legal marriage and rise in cohabitation, in many western societies during the past half a century. Previous research suggests that the ongoing transformation is an irreversible process that will reshape the constructs of family and marriage. However, important questions remain unexplained concerning the variation in the trajectories of this transformation process in various societies and how the trends observed at aggregate level unveil at individual level. In this study, I use longitudinal and census data from Canada and the US to investigate the processes of first marriage and first cohabitation from a diffusion perspective. The research questions include: first, how did the regularity of marriage process change over recent cohorts in the wake of postmodern socioeconomic and ideological developments? And, does the process of cohabitation assume a similar regularity as its social significance rises? Second, how did the diffusion of innovative changes in partnership formation occur at individual level, in a cohort or across cohorts? Third, what is the mechanism shaping the variations of first partnership formation over cohorts and across regions? Does the empirical evidence in the two North American neighbors suggest cross-level interaction effects on the diffusion processes? It is found that both marriage and cohabitation follow the S-shaped cumulative curves, and the Hernes model performs well in modeling not only first marriage, but also first cohabitation. Significant diffusion impacts, either through susceptibility, or through contagion, or both, are found in these processes. Moreover, significant cross-level interactions are found between individual- and aggregate-level characteristics such as “ethnicity” and “education” in marriage and cohabitation processes. The unique contribution of this study lies in that, to the best of my knowledge, this is among the first longitudinal studies of first partnership transformations from a diffusion perspective, which combines both individual and aggregate evidences. It bridges our knowledge about changes in individual behavior with the aggregate level trends, throws light on other related life course transitions, and helps us understand some controversies in the existing literature.

Abstract (French)

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