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Objective: This paper analyzes gender inequalities in leisure time within coresident opposite‐sex couples with and without children at home in five European countries to evaluate the gendered parental impact in leisure time. Background: In European societies, women continue to bear much of the physical and mental burden involved in running a household and managing family life resulting in greater levels of stress and time deprivation. Time spent in leisure has been associated with better physical and psychological wellness. Understanding how gender influences the distribution of leisure time among couples living with and without children at home, and how these effects differ across European countries, is important to understand individual and couples' well‐being. Method: Drawing on information from the Multinational Time Use Study for 15,024 matched couples residing in Spain, Italy, France, Finland, and the United Kingdom, we conduct a series of ordinary‐least‐squares regression analyses with country fixed effects. Results: The general trends reveal that women in Europe allocate less time to leisure and that mothers experience lower leisure of high quality compared to their partners when their children are below the age of 5. However, Finnish and British couples exhibit a more egalitarian distribution of leisure time regardless of their parental status, particularly when compared to Italian and Spanish ones. Conclusion: This study unveils a gendered use of leisure time, as well as a gendered parental impact when children are young. However, the impact of women's second shift in leisure time varies across countries, suggesting a cultural and institutional effect. Implications: These findings have implications for researchers, health professionals, and policymakers concerned with understanding and alleviating situations of overstress, time poverty, and depression among women, but especially among mothers of young children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rising employment uncertainty featured by higher risks of being temporarily employed or unemployed is often seen as the driving force behind delayed and declined partnering in Western countries. However, such an employment–partnering relationship is contextualized by labour market institutions and thus could diverge across countries over time. This paper aims to investigate how country-level variations in labour market regulations moderate individual-level effects of unstable employment on union formation, including the transitions into marriage or cohabitation unions. Using comparative panel data for 26 countries from the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (the years 2010–2019), our multilevel fixed effects models showed that temporary employment and unemployment negatively affected the probability of union formation for single women and men in Europe. Moreover, the negative relationship between unstable employment and union formation was reinforced when labour market reforms were stimulating insider–outsider segregations or decreasing welfare provisions. Specifically, stricter employment protection legislations and higher coverage rates of collective bargaining agreements could reinforce the negative effects of temporary employment and unemployment on union formation, while more generous provisions of unemployment benefits could buffer such negative effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a comprehensive analysis and comparison of the existing literature on the phenomenon of non-marriage or staying unmarried in Asian countries such as China, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore, as well as European and American countries such as Spain and the US, and explores the trends, characteristics as well as reasons behind such a phenomenon. Through analysis, the present study found that there is a growing trend of postponed marriage and parenthood as well as an increasing proportion of individuals who exhibit no enthusiasm towards matrimony or parenthood in the aforementioned countries. To some extent, non-marriage or postponed marriage has become a prevalent trend in developed countries and even some developing countries. Japan, South Korea, and several developed countries in Europe and America have exhibited this phenomenon since the middle to late 20th century, with a relatively long history. The emergence of this phenomenon in China, Malaysia, the Philippines, and other developing countries in Asia, however, was relatively late, exhibiting a gradual development process. The current marriage landscape in China is characterized by a growing number of non-marriage individuals and a significant level of marital stability. In terms of reasons for staying unmarried, the marriage rates in the aforementioned countries can be attributed to various factors at macro, meso, and micro levels. In China, the phenomenon of non-marriage is closely associated with a range of factors, including diverse values and attitudes towards romance and marriage, marriage squeeze, education expansion, and the rise in females' economic and social status. The emphasis in future research should be placed on predicting the phenomenon of non-marriage, with a specific focus on exploring the reasons for advocating non-marriage, examining the internal mechanisms underlying this phenomenon, analyzing the consequences of non-marriage, and proposing corresponding countermeasures while establishing the public identity towards marriage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite a growing body of research on later-life relationships, there are still only a limited number of explorative longitudinal studies that have investigated the factors responsible for the establishment of either a Living-Apart-Together (LAT) arrangement or a cohabitation relationship. Two waves of data collection by the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (2014/2015-2017; N = 12,155; Mage = 71.96; 76.3% women) were analyzed with a special focus on family, dwelling, and financial constraints. Those who were male, younger, and had more children were more likely to enter into a LAT arrangement or a cohabitation relationship than to remain unpartnered. More rooms and fewer years spent in the accommodation raised the odds to partner. LAT persons were slightly older than those in cohabitation relationships. No other factors influenced the form of living arrangement, which indicates that factors other than financial constraints and family responsibilities affect later-life LAT or cohabitation relationship formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowhere in Europe is extramarital childbearing more pervasive than in Iceland. Roughly, 70% of children born in 2018 were conceived outside of marriage, thereof 83% of firstborn, which, on the surface, puts Iceland at the vanguard of a development often associated with a second demographic transition. In this study, we investigate the union formation behaviour of Icelandic women during a period of 20 years (1994–2013) with the objectives of gaining insight into the interplay of childbearing, registered cohabitation, and marriage and to enhance our understanding of the function of registered cohabitation in the family-building process. We use administrative population register data, covering the childbearing and marital history of the total female population born in Iceland during 1962–1997. The data are analysed by means of event history techniques and presented as annual indices of first-registered cohabitation and first-marriage formation, respectively. We find indications of forceful postponement of registering cohabitation over time, but a stable portion of around 80% of women registered cohabitation before any first marriage or age 46. Around 70% of women married before age 46, and the standardized marriage rates remained relatively stable during most of our study period. Our findings suggest that within a context such as the Icelandic one, most people tend to marry, regardless of the prevalence of cohabitation. We propose that registered cohabitation should be seen as providing a semi-regulated union status for prospective parents in relation to childbearing. Marriage on the other hand could be seen as providing an elevated union status to couples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using comparable survey data from eight European countries this study investigated expected consequences of forming a co-residential relationship among non-partnered individuals aged 22-35 (N = 8443). Results showed that respondents expected improvements in their financial situation when moving in with a partner, though in all countries women held more positive expectations toward their post union formation economic situation than men. This result likely reflects the lingering traditional gender structure of the society, with men faced with the responsibility of being the main breadwinner in the family. Such an interpretation would seem to be supported by the fact that this gender gap was smallest in Sweden, France and Belgium, the countries in the current sample with the most egalitarian gender structure. Potential restrictions in personal freedom by forming a co-residential relationship, on the other hand, seem to be less important, particularly among women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cohabitation of Drosophila melanogaster with humans is nearly ubiquitous. Though it has been well established that this fly species originated in sub-Saharan Africa, and only recently has spread globally, many details of its swift expansion remain unclear. Elucidating the demographic history of D. melanogaster provides a unique opportunity to investigate how human movement might have impacted patterns of genetic diversity in a commensal species, as well as providing neutral null models for studies aimed at identifying genomic signatures of local adaptation. Here, we use whole-genome data from five populations (Africa, North America, Europe, Central Asia, and the South Pacific) to carry out demographic inferences, with particular attention to the inclusion of migration and admixture. We demonstrate the importance of these parameters for model fitting and show that how previous estimates of divergence times are likely to be significantly underestimated as a result of not including them. Finally, we discuss how human movement along early shipping routes might have shaped the present-day population structure of D. melanogaster. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research has demonstrated that parental socio-economic status (SES) is an important determinant of the timing of entry into a first co-residential union. Whilst the majority of existing studies found that young adults from high-SES families delay their first union compared with those from lower-SES backgrounds, all these studies were conducted within a single country. This study examines the link between parental SES and the timing and type of first union for 25 European countries participating in the European Social Survey Round 3 (2006/2007). Results from two-step meta-analytical models indicate that in almost all countries young adults from advantaged backgrounds delay their entry into a first union. This delaying effect of parental SES is stronger if young adults marry directly than if they enter their first union via unmarried cohabitation. The impact of parental SES is only partly mediated by an individual's own education. The strength of the link between parental SES and union formation varies between countries: the delaying impact of parental SES is weakest in those Northern and Western European countries that are most advanced in the Second Demographic Transition. However, after controlling for individual education, the cross-national variation in the link between parental SES and union formation disappears. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND With rising union instability across Europe, more individuals now re-enter the partner market and eventually repartner. The increase in cohabitation may also be influencing repartnering behaviour. While several studies examine individual-level characteristics related to repartnering, few take a broader view and compare repartnering levels or explore how demographic characteristics associated with repartnering differ across Europe. OBJECTIVE We describe levels of repartnering and the characteristics of those exposed to repartnering in 11 European countries. We then examine whether the relationship between women's demographic characteristics at union dissolution and repartnering are similar or different across countries. Given the recent increase in cohabitation, we pay particular attention to prior cohabitation and marriage, but we also compare age at first union dissolution, first union duration, and presence of children. METHODS Using the Harmonized Histories database, we apply discrete-time hazard models separately by country and to pooled cross-national data. RESULTS Despite large differences in levels of repartnering, in most countries we find similar associations between demographic characteristics and repartnering. First union type did not matter after controlling for age and children, except in France, where those who previously cohabited had significantly lower risks of repartnering. Age at union dissolution and presence of children are negatively associated with repartnering in almost all countries. CONCLUSION Although cohabitation has increased everywhere, prior experience of a coresidential partnership outside of formal marriage makes little difference to repartnering behaviour after controls (except in France). However, regardless of country, older women and/or mothers are less likely to form second unions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND This special collection is the result of a collaboration between a group of family scholars from Europe and the United States. It initially developed from the observation that in many Western countries new types of couple relationships have emerged alongside marriage (i.e., cohabitation and living-apart-together [LAT] relationships). Although the trend seems universal, it is likely that the prevalence of different relationship types, and their outcomes in particular, vary across countries. Countries differ in how they institutionalize and confer meaning on new relationship types. Such differences may have important implications for how couples behave and organize their daily lives, in turn affecting the well-being of family members. The articles in this special collection aim to understand the organization and relationship outcomes of cohabitation, marriage, and LAT relationships across countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unmarried cohabitation is often seen as a radically ‘new’ phenomenon, originating in the 1960s, but in fact it has long historical antecedents. The question is, however, whether traditional and modern cohabitation are comparable and whether we can speak of persistence. This article offers a literature review on cohabitation in Europe, with the focus on persistence over time, integrating the results of a 2013 conference on this topic. What sources are available to confirm or reject such persistence? How should we understand persistence? In terms of the motivations of unmarried cohabitants? Or in terms of the acceptance of the community at large? And if no real persistence is found, does this mean that European cohabitation since the 1970s truly represents ‘new’ behaviour? We show that, on the regional level, the legacy of the past is still visible in factors affecting the timing and frequency of marriage of cohabiting couples. These factors are a mixture of regional socio-economic constraints, the relative cultural importance attached to marriage, the religious history, and the level of secularization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increase in births within cohabitation in the United States and across Europe suggests that cohabitation and marriage have become more similar with respect to childbearing. However, little is known about additional childbearing after first birth. Using harmonized union and fertility histories from surveys in 15 countries, this study examines second conception risks leading to a live birth for women who have given birth within a union. Results show that women who continue to cohabit after birth have significantly lower second conception risks than married women in all countries except those in Eastern Europe, even when controlling for union duration, union dissolution, age at first birth, and education. Pooled models indicate that differences in the second conception risks by union type between Eastern and Western Europe are significant. Pooled models including an indicator for the diffusion of cohabitation show that when first births within cohabitation are rare, cohabiting women have significantly lower second conception risks than married women. As first births within cohabitation increase, differences in second conception risks for cohabiting and married women narrow. But as the percent increases further, the differentials increase again, suggesting that cohabitation and marriage are not becoming equivalent settings for additional childbearing. However, I also find that in all countries except Estonia, women who marry after first birth have second conception risks similar to couples married at first birth, indicating that the sequence of marriage and childbearing does not matter to fertility as much as the act of marrying itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers the author's insights on the Second Demographic Transition (SDT) in Europe. Topics include the decline of fertility rate and the increase of cohabitation and divorce rates and the reasons behind such trends, the implications of SDT in different countries such as Japan, and the efforts of Europeans to produce new values and institutions for mature societies. It also discusses the Japanese model of new values, which leads to its lost decades.

Previous research has revealed a paradoxical simultaneity of egalitarian gender values and inegalitarian practices in Europe. The social-democratic welfare states, i.e. the Nordic countries, however, stand out collectively as having the most consistent relationship between egalitarian values and practices. The present article examines the consistencies and inconsistencies between gender values and practices among Norwegian married and cohabiting women and men, focusing particularly on the division of housework and childcare. Drawing on data from the Norwegian Generations and Gender Survey, we identify four distinct types of value–practice relationships in families. Analysis of predicted class membership probabilities reveals that half of our sample belongs to a family type with consistent gender values and household practices, of whom the majority has consistent egalitarian values and egalitarian practices. The other half belongs to a family type with inconsistent value–practice relationships. These are significantly gendered, leading us to recast the so-called paradoxical simultaneity of egalitarian values and inegalitarian practices into afemale paradoxand the simultaneity of inegalitarian values and egalitarian practices into amale paradox. We attribute the gendered nature of the inconsistencies between values and practices mainly to women's and men's dissimilar perceptions of how everyday household work is apportioned between partners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors examined the association between different meanings of cohabitation and fertility intentions. Using data from the Generations and Gender Surveys on 5,565 cohabiters from 9 European countries (Austria, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Hungary, Lithuania, Norway, Romania, and Russia), they proposed a cohabitation typology based on attitudes toward marriage, intentions to marry, and perceived economic deprivation. Despite substantial variation in the prevalence and types of cohabiting relationships across Europe, cohabitation has become a living arrangement within which childbearing intentions are commonly formed and at times carried out. The authors found that the meaning that cohabiters attached to their union influenced significantly their short-term fertility intentions, net of other covariates. Cohabiters who viewed their unions as a prelude to marriage were the most likely to plan to have a child in the near future, both in Western and Eastern European societies. The association between fertility intentions and marriage intentions was particularly strong among cohabiters who do not as yet have children in common, but it was also present in a more muted form among cohabitating parents. The findings suggest that, although marriage and childbearing are becoming less closely linked life events, they are not disconnected decisions for a large majority of cohabiters across Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite ample research on behavioral aspects of the transition to adulthood, few comparative studies have focused on “subjective” facets. Using data from the European Social Survey, we probe similarities and differences in conceptions of adulthood for men and women in twenty-five European countries. We examine perceptions of the age of adulthood and the importance of four social markers (leaving home, having a full-time job, living with a partner or spouse, and becoming a parent). Results reveal a shared European idea about age, with men consistently reaching adulthood later than women. The significance of various markers, however, shows greater heterogeneity across nations. Country differences go beyond welfare state classification and underscore the importance of value systems. Conceptions for men and women are surprisingly similar. While economic independence matters more for men's lives, it is nonetheless salient for women. Even more, family formation now seems a unisex organizer of the life course. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The authors compared male and female same-sex and different-sex couples in the Netherlands with respect to age and educational homogamy. Because many same-sex couples in the Netherlands are married, differences between married and cohabiting couples were analyzed for all 3 groups. Analyses of data from the Dutch Labor Force Surveys 2001-2007 (N = 184,999 couples) showed that male same-sex couples are less homogamous in terms of age and education than different-sex couples. Female same-sex couples are less homogamous in terms of age, but not in terms of education. No meaningful differences were found between married couples and cohabiting couples. Partnership status appeared less important than the sex composition of the couple. Given the relatively tolerant climate toward homosexuals in the Netherlands, the similarity of the results with those yielded by studies conducted in the United States may be considered striking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Radical changes in living arrangements, in sexual habits and in the position of marriage in Europe have arisen, very unevenly, since the 1960s and in some regions in scarcely more than a decade. Cohabitation before marriage is normal - even universal - in many countries, with the popularity of marriage falling as its mean age rises to beyond the highest levels hitherto recorded. Divorce has been legalised and in most cases made readily accessible. However, although not as firm a demarcation as once believed, Hajnal s line separating East and West has not yet been erased from the map of contemporary Europe. The article describes patterns and trends in partnership in Europe, including trends in marriage rates, divorce rates, the spread of cohabitation, LAT-relations and of births outside marriage, and tries to account for them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent decades, Europe has witnessed dramatic changes in demographic behaviour manifested by postponement of childbearing, cohabitation replacing marriage together with increased divorce rates. It is often argued, especially in the demography literature, that these new behaviours are driven by fundamental changes in attitudes and value orientations. This article uses data from the third round of the European Social Survey to assess the drivers behind attitudes to demographic behaviour. There are large differences across countries, and we find that economic development is indeed a strong predictor for modern attitudes. However, attitudes towards demographic behaviour correlate with many other country-specific characteristics, some challenging popular wisdom in the demography literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Couples who have children are increasingly likely to have lived together without being married at some point in their relationship. Some couples begin their unions with cohabitation and marry before first conception, some marry during pregnancy or directly after the first birth, while others remain unmarried 3 years after the first birth. Using union and fertility histories since the 1970s for eleven countries, we examine whether women who have children in unions marry, and if so, at what stage in family formation. We also examine whether women who conceive when cohabiting are more likely to marry or separate. We find that patterns of union formation and childbearing develop along different trajectories across countries. In all countries, however, less than 40 per cent of women remained in cohabitation up to 3 years after the first birth, suggesting that marriage remains the predominant institution for raising children. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this study, the authors used data from the first wave of the Generations and Gender Survey to investigate relationship quality among currently married and cohabiting individuals ages 18 to 55 (N = 41,760) in 8 European countries (Bulgaria, France, Germany, Hungary, Norway, Romania, Russia, and The Netherlands). They expected to find fewer differences between cohabitation and marriage in countries where cohabitation is widespread. Controlling for a range of selection characteristics of respondents and their partners (e.g., common children, union duration, and education), the analyses showed that in all countries cohabiters more often had breakup plans and were less satisfied with their relationships than individuals who married. This cohabitation gap in relationship quality was largest in Russia, Romania, and Germany, which indeed were among the countries in the current sample where cohabitation was least prevalent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of European Journal of Population is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The current paper is aimed at contributing to the ongoing debate about divergence and convergence of family patterns in Europe. By adding several Eastern European countries and using several additional background indicators of cohabiting unions, the paper explores previous considerations of unmarried cohabitation. The main conclusion is that, as a universal trend, cohabitation is spreading across Europe and that while acquiring a normative value in a country it starts to develop its internal diversity. Besides convergence (with reference to universalistic approach), there is a noticeable trend towards divergence of the cohabitation patterns in Europe. The analysis is based on the European Social Survey, Round 2, 3 and 4 (2004, 2006 and 2008 respectively) and includes the data of 15 European countries (Belgium, Switzerland, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Sweden, France, Slovakia and Slovenia). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In most European countries law is one of the two permissible bases to claim inheritance which, although being the weaker legal basis, is more frequently applied in these countries than testation, as a legal basis to claim inheritance. The most important facts which classes are based upon in modern legal orders are kinship, marriage and concubinage. The significance of the particular legal regulation of the relationship of kinship, marriage and concubinage in formula- ting rules of intestacy stems from the fact that the rules regulating this form of inheritance reflect a general opinion of a society concerning the manner in which legal consequences of the death of decedent should be regulated. In this paper we analise the specifities of legal regulation of intestacy in former socialist countries, majority of which are members of the European Union. More specifically, this analysis includes the laws of Russia, Czech Republic, Hungary ad Bulgaria. Hence, the subject of our research is to be observed from the perspective of comparative method, which is necessary in order to perceive certain similarities and differences in the positive law approach and that of legal theory in considering this issue. This method is, thus, the most suitable one for perceiving similar solutions and general legal principles, that modern laws of Europe are governed by when regulating intestacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nearly every European Country has experienced some increase in nonmarital childbearing, largely due to increasing births within cohabitation. Relatively few studies in Europe, however, investigate the educational gradient of childbearing within cohabitation or how it changed over time. Using retrospective union and fertility histories, we employ competing risk hazard models to examine the educational gradient of childbearing in cohabitation in eight countries across europe. In all countries studied, birth risks within cohabitation demonstrated a negative educational gradient. When directly comparing cohabiting fertility with marital fertility, the negative educational gradient persists in all countries except Italy, although differences were not significant in Austria, France, and West Germany. To explain these findings, we present an alternative explanation for the increase in childbearing within cohabitation that goes beyond the explanation of the Second Demographic Transition and provides a new interpretation of the underlying mechanisms that may influence childbearing within cohabitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Re P (Adoption: Unmarried Couple) [2008) UKHL 38, [2008) 2 FLR 1084 the House of Lords held that a bar on adoption by unmarried couples is unlawful discrimination contrary to Article 14 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms 1950 (ECHR). In R v Secretary of State for Health and Kent County Council, ex p B [1999] 1 FLR 656, the High Court found that a bar on fostering by convicted sex offenders is lawful. In what follows, I argue that the reasoning in Re P applies mutatis mutandis to individuals such as those in ex p B prevented from adopting or fostering under vetting and barring schemes, the most prominent being the scheme introduced by the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006. I first consider various ways in which such individuals could bring themselves within the grounds protected by Article 14, and I argue that `sex offender' itself could be a protected status, because sex offenders have the personal characteristic of risk'. I next analyse whether the bar on adoption and fostering, and vetting and barring schemes in their entirety, would fall within the ambit of a substantive Article of the ECHR, and I conclude that the whole Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act scheme would come within the scope of Article 8. Finally, I consider whether the bar on adoption and fostering by risky individuals is objectively justified, and I conclude that the argument that convinced the House of Lords in Re P applies equally in this context: it is impermissible to turn a reasonable generalisation into an irrebuttable presumption for individual cases, given the duty to treat the best interests of the child as paramount. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a narrative of the unfolding of the Second Demographic Transition (SDT) since the theory was first formulated in 1986. The first part recapitulates the foundations of the theory, and documents the spread of the SDT to the point that it now covers most European populations. Also for Europe, it focuses on the relationship between the SDT and the growing heterogeneity in period fertility levels. It is shown that the current positive relationship between SDT and TFR levels is not a violation of the SDT theory, but the outcome of a “split correlation” with different sub-narratives concerning the onset of fertility postponement and the degree of subsequent recuperation in two parts of Europe. The second part of the article addresses the issue of whether the SDT has spread or is currently spreading in industrialized Asian countries. Evidence gathered for Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan is presented. That evidence pertains to both the macro-level (national trends in postponement of marriage and parenthood, rise of cohabitation) and the micro-level (connections between individual values orientations and postponement of parenthood). Strong similarities are found with SDT patterns in Southern Europe, except for the fact that parenthood is still very rare among Asian cohabiting partners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main task of legislature in regulation of intestacy is determining inheritants. The most important facts which classes in intestacy are based on today, that is, in contemporary legal orders, are kinship, marriage and cohabitation. An adequate relationship of these facts, as legally relevant, in formulating intestacy, is of great importance in every specific legal order. Namely, in most continental European countries, one of the two possible legal bases to claim inheritance is intestacy, which, even though being a weaker legal basis, is more frequently practised to testation as the other legal basis. Furthermore, the importance of the specific way of legal regulation of the relationship of kinship, marriage and cohabitation in formulating rules of intestacy lies in the fact that these norms reflect a general attitude of a society towards regulation of legal effects after the death of the deceased. For these reasons, it is important to compare legislations of certain legal orders, regarding the issue of the aforementioned facts in formulating rules of intestacy. As a continuation of previous papers, where we discussed legal consequences of relationship of kinship, marriage and cohabitation in law of England, as well as the countries of the German law tradition, the subject of research in this paper is legal regulation of the issue in the countries of Roman (French) legal tradition, more specifically, France, Belgium, Italy and Spain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study aims to assess, first, whether there is a gap in well-being between unmarried cohabitants and the married, second, if selection factors can explain this so-called cohabitation gap, and third, if the size of the cohabitation gap differs across countries and how this can be explained. We use pooled data from young adults (18–44) in 3 rounds of the European Social Survey (N ≍ 31, 500). Multilevel regression analyses show that there is a moderate cohabitation gap that can be partly explained with the selection factors material resources and religiosity. Country differences were clear and could partly be explained with the level of institutionalization: In countries where cohabitation is more accepted and more prevalent, the cohabitation gap is smaller. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the strategies for reconciling family and work in different union types. The focus here is on investigating how cohabiting and married individuals perceive the work-life conflict in different European countries. To test the union type impact on work-life balance in the context of different societal conditions, this paper draws on 2004 ESS data from Sweden, Germany, United Kingdom, Slovenia and Estonia (European Social Survey 2004). The pooled country data are examined to analyze the association between work-life conflict and socio-demographic, as well as family-level characteristics of individuals. The findings did not demonstrate uniform differences in the work-life conflict of married and cohabiting couples. However, a higher degree of work-life conflict among Swedish cohabiting women was still significant when controlling for individual characteristics, household composition and working conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Even though it is indisputable that contemporary European legal systems base their classes in intestacy, that is forced heirship, on the fact of kinship and marriage, and some of them also on the fact of cohabitation, a concrete way of legal regulation of kinship, marriage and cohabitation, as legally relevant facts in formulating the rules of intestacy and forced heirship, can be distinguished in each of them. Inheritance law effects of kinship and marriage, that is, cohabitation, are extremely complicated and can only be utterly understood through analysis of a certain number of issues which refer to each of these facts individually, and by their mutual association and interconnection in every legal system. This is due to the fact that the way this relation forms depends on the particular society, understanding of family, marriage, cohabitation, marriage and family values, particular circumstances and actual needs. As a certain sequent of the previous paper, in which we refer to inheritance law effects of kinship, marriage and cohabitation in the law of England, this paper analyses the legal regulation of the said issue in certain continental law countries, more specifically in the countries of German law legal systems. The state of legislation in the laws of Germany, Austria and Switzerland, typical countries of legal culture and characteristic representatives of the Germanic law tradition countries, is of particular importance. This paper, however, refers also to the normative solutions existing in the law of Greece which evidently accepts essentially a certain number of legal solutions of the aforementioned laws, particularly the law of Germany. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the era of the 'golden age of marriage' and the baby boom in the 1950s and 1960s, marriage has declined in importance, and its role as the main institution on which family relations are built has been eroded across Europe. Union formation most often takes place without a marriage. Family and living arrangements are currently heterogeneous across Europe, but all countries seem to be making the same shifts: towards fewer people living together as a couple, especially in marriage; an increased number of unmarried couples; more children born outside marriage; and fewer children living with their two parents. The relationship between these changing living arrangements, especially the decline of marriage, on the one hand, and the overall level of fertility, on the other, is not straightforward. In most countries, marriage rates and fertility declined simultaneously. However, the aggregate relationship between marriage and fertility indices has moved from negative (fewer marriages imply fewer births) to positive (fewer marriages imply more births). Thus, the decline of marriage, which is a part of the second demographic transition (see Overview Chapter 6), cannot be considered an important cause of the current low fertility level in many European countries. On the contrary, in European countries where the decline of marriage has been less pronounced, fertility levels are currently lower than in countries where new living arrangements have become most common. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper examines the drinking behaviour of young adults aged 24-32 who were married or were cohabiting. Data on this subject were available from surveys in 10 European countries. These were carried out under the auspices of the major investigation entitled 'Gender, Alcohol and Culture: An International Study (GENACIS)'. In general married people were similar to those cohabiting on annual frequencies of alcohol consumption, but lower on amounts consumed on each occasion and, therefore, on annual volumes. However, the extent of these differences varied in different countries. On the usual consumption per occasion measure, there were larger differences between married and cohabiting in Sweden, Spain, the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic and Norway than in Germany, Finland, Denmark, Iceland and Hungary. The differences between married and cohabiting people were, however, not associated with gender or with the presence of children. At the aggregate country level no associations could be shown with women's empowerment, age of first marriage or per capita alcohol consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article deals with sociological, demographical and demogeographical aspects of the singles phenomenon in Europe and in Slovakia. Since issues such as the increasing number of singles, cohabitations, and individualism are being reflected in everyday popular culture, clichés arise depicting the singles as people who are high earning egoists having uninhibited sexual life. The main aim of the article is to overview the existing definitions of such phenomena since in Slovakia they are not yet conceptually, empirically and critically elaborated. Another aim of the article is to depict general situation in European countries paying special attention to Slovak-specific features. Singles represent and will represent serious structural element of the future demographical change. This is why they enter population forecasting and should be concerned in population policy decisions and family planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses a game theoretic model to explain empirical research which has revealed higher relational satisfaction among married couples than cohabiting couples, as well as among married couples who did not cohabit before marriage. Despite these findings, in recent decades cohabitation rates have dramatically increased in both Europe and the United States. Instrumental variables estimations on data from 28 industrialized countries and 50 U.S. states show cohabitation strongly correlated with increases in women's labor force participation, where a 10 percent increase in women's labor force participation results in a 6.4 to 14.6 percent increase in cohabitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European countries differ considerably in their marriage patterns. The study presented in this paper describes these differences for the 1990s and attempts to explain them from a macro-level perspective. We find that different indicators of marriage (i.e., marriage rate, age at marriage, divorce rate, and prevalence of unmarried cohabitation) cannot be seen as indicators of an underlying concept such as the 'strength of marriage'. Multivariate ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analyses are estimated with countries as units and panel regression models are estimated in which annual time series for multiple countries are pooled. Using these models, we find that popular explanations of trends in the indicators - explanations that focus on gender roles, secularization, unemployment, and educational expansion - are also important for understanding differences among countries. We also find evidence for the role of historical continuity and societal disintegration in understanding cross-national differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the shift in European youth to later maturity, both in terms of marriage and in employment. This article discusses the cohabitation of young people before deciding on marriage, and the effect that the introduction of the birth control pill in the 1960s had on sexual life. European young adults are more frequently taking a "gap year," or a year off between secondary education and university study. Also discussed is the high unemployment rate for European young adults.

The aim of this article is to integrate empirical research on divorce risks in Europe and to explain the variation of empirical findings between European countries by the different levels of modernization and differences in the strength of marriage norms. We focus on the effects of premarital cohabitation, the presence of children, and the experience with parental divorce on marital stability. More than 260 studies on divorce risks could be identified, and 120 were used for further meta-analytical examinations. We show that there is considerable heterogeneity of divorce risks within as well as between countries. Explaining the variation of effect sizes between European countries, it could be shown that in countries where more rigid marriage norms prevail cohabitation has a stronger effect on marital stability than in countries where marriage norms are weaker. Furthermore, the lower the divorce barriers are, the weaker is the association between the parental divorce and the divorce risk of the offspring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cohabitors and married people who cohabited before marriage have higher risks of union dissolution than people who married without prior cohabitation. However, these differences in union stability vary markedly between countries. We hypothesize that the impact of cohabitation on union stability depends on how far cohabitation has diffused within a society. We test this hypothesis with data from 16 European countries. The results support our hypothesis: former cohabitors run a higher risk of union dissolution than people who married without prior cohabitation only in societies in which cohabitation is a small minority or a large majority phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the legal ramifications of the protection of partners in informal cohabitation relationships in Europe. Legal status of children whose unmarried parents have separated; Definition of cohabitation; Regulation of cohabitation; Need for protection in cases of separation or death of one of the partners.

Views the changes in the American family from an international perspective, by studying related trends in Canada, Japan, and the major Western European nations over the past 25-30 years. Demographic and sociological changes; Household size and composition; Decline of married couples; Rise of consensual unions and single-parent families; One-person households; Mothers in the work force. INSET: Appendix: Concepts and definitions..