TY - JOUR T1 - Is Your Love in Vain? Another Look at Premarital Cohabitation and Divorce JF - Journal of Human Resources JO - J Hum Resour SP - 523 LP - 535 DO - 10.3368/jhr.XXXIX.2.523 VL - XXXIX IS - 2 AU - Michael Svarer Y1 - 2004/03/31 UR - http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/XXXIX/2/523.abstract N2 - 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. ER -