Consensual unions and fertility
Keywords:
consensual union, marriage, fertility, FinlandAbstract
This article examines how consensual unions affect the childbearing of couples who live in a marriage which has been preceded by premarital cohabitation. The study is focused on women under the age of 30 when they started their first union. It is based on three five-year cohorts who started living together in 1970-1984. The material used is from a survey carried out in 1989. The study deals with the pattern and frequency of giving birth to the first child by comparing the childbearing of the directly married with those whose marriage was preceded by cohabitation. By comparing the total number of children borne by women who have lived in an extra-marital cohabitation with different national means, the effect of pre-marital cohabitation on fertility is estimated. The study has shown that the total number of children in families is related to the length o premarital cohabitation. The couples who have lived longer without marriage tend to have less children
than the directly married.
