PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Svarer, Michael
TI  - Is Your Love in Vain? Another Look at Premarital Cohabitation and Divorce
AID  - 10.3368/jhr.XXXIX.2.523
DP  - 2004 Mar 31
TA  - Journal of Human Resources
PG  - 523--535
VI  - XXXIX
IP  - 2
4099  - http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/XXXIX/2/523.short
4100  - http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/XXXIX/2/523.full
SO  - J Hum Resour2004 Mar 31; XXXIX
AB  - In this paper we provide an empirical investigation of the association between premarital cohabitation and subsequent risk of divorce. Theoretically couples who cohabit before marriage should have a lower subsequent risk of divorce since cohabitation enables you to gather information about the match quality, and only good matches evolve into marriage. However, a considerable number of papers have come to the complete opposite conclusion. The counter-intuitive result has been justified with self-selection of cohabitants as the main argument. In the present paper, we provide new evidence concerning the relationship between premarital cohabitation and divorce.