Hi everyone. Here’s my draft One.
It’s not very good, so please advise. Thanks!
Academic Paper - Draft One
Everything in Caren Wu’s Yau Yat Chuen flat in Kowloon, Hong Kong, is tidy, orderly, and exists in pairs – two cups on the dining table, two plates and two sets of cutlery in the kitchen sink, two toothbrushes and towels in the bathroom. It is obvious that a couple lives in this flat, except for one thing - there are no wedding photos. Wu, a 25 year-old Dragonair flight attendant, has been cohabiting or living with her boyfriend, a Hong Kong Cathay Pacific pilot, for the past three years.
Popular commentators have viewed
couples living together without marrying as reduced willingness to create and
honour life-long partnerships (Jamieson, Anderson & McCrone, 2002). As
cohabitation became increasingly prevalent in the 1980s (Bumpass & Lu,
2000; Bumpass & Sweet, 1989; Raley, 2000; Smock, 2000), researchers began
to explore the quality and stability of such relationships. The possible
influence of race, education and other factors on relationship quality in
cohabitors has been studied by Brown and Booth (1996), and little significance
was found. There are also cultural differences to bear in mind when studying
cohabitors across different countries. As such, in this paper, I shall look at
the studies on personal well-being in cohabitating relationships on a general
basis. By personal well-being, I shall review research that has been done on
relationship quality, and attitudes towards marriage among cohabitors.
Different
factors have been used to identify relationship quality in different studies.
Thomas and Colella (1992) use happiness, conflict and communication as factors to
define quality in a relationship. Skinner, Bahr, Crane and Call (2002) define
relationship quality as happiness, communication, fairness and disagreements.
Most
researchers have found relationship quality to be less satisfactory in
cohabitors when compared to married couples. In a study examining the
relationship between premarital cohabitation experience and marital
communication, Cohan and Kleinbaum (2002) found that compared with married
couples, cohabitors used more negative skills in problem solving and support
behavior. Cohabitors appear less happy and more likely to dissolve their
partnerships than married couples (Blumstein & Schwartz, 1983; Bumpass
& Sweet, 1989; Nock, 1995; Thomas & Colella, 1992). Using data from the
1987-88 National Survey of Families and Households in the United States, Thomas
and Colella (1992) found that cohabiting couples showed less commitment to
marriage and also lower quality marriages when they did get married. Compared
to married couples, cohabitors are less fair and happy, and disagree and fight
more (Brown & Booth, 1996). Nock’s (1995) research again reinforced
previous findings that cohabitors are less happy and show less commitment to
relationship than married couples.
However,
there are still some benefits on health and well-being of being in a cohabiting
relationship rather than being single. Couples tend to be happier, live longer,
and have fewer mental and physical illness (Berkma & Syme, 1979; Brown
& Hans, 1978; House, Lardis & Umberson, 1988). Although cohabitation
cannot bring out the financial satisfaction felt by married couples, they
nonetheless feel happier than the single (Stack & Eshleman, 1998).
Researchers
generally agree that cohabitors are more negative towards marriage than married
couples. In a Newsweek Article titled “Love – and Marriage?”, Scelfo (2002)
cites a study by a University of Michigan sociologist, confirming assumptions
that couples who live together are less likely to wed than before living
together. As an example, she mentions the interview of Teri Hu, who refutes
Smock’s suggestion that women’s motivation to get married is finding a man with
qualification and income. Hu insists that she has her own income and has
decided to cohabit by her own choice. Thomas and Colella (1992) believe that
cohabitors show a greater chance of divorce than couples who did not cohabit
before marriage. Tanfer (1987) found cohabiting women to have more negative
attitudes about marriage than non-cohabiting single women. The decision not to
marry their partner also increases significantly in cohabitors. Cohabitors who
had failed relationships in the past are more inclined to accept divorce (Axinn
& Barber, 1997).
Researchers
have tried to explain why cohabitors generally seem to have relationships of
lower quality. Skinner, Bahr, Crane and Call (2002) cite social pressure
against cohabitation to be one reason leading to cohabitors’ unstable
relationships. Current laws do not give protection to cohabitors like the benefits
married couples enjoy. Hence cohabitors face more uncertainty and therefore may
experience lower quality in their relationships.
Cohabitors
are more likely to stress on their own individualism, autonomy, equality and
equity than married couples (Brines & Joyner, 1999). Their commitment to
maintain a lifelong relationship is therefore lower (Schoen & Weinick,
1993).
In
the study on cohabitors, two groups of people have been singled out: long-term
cohabitors and those with intention to marry, Brown and Booth (1996) found that
the relationship quality between cohabitors with intention to marry and married
couples is not significant. Couples who cohabit over a long period of time are
less happy and fair than other types of couples (Skinner, Bahr, Crane & Call,
2002). The longer a couple cohabits, the less interested they are in getting
married and having children (Axinn & Barber, 1997).
Axinn and Barber’s theory may
seem to explain what is happening for Wu. Her boyfriend has proposed to her
more than a year ago. “At first he said that he’d like to postpone the wedding
until when he gets his promotion,” Wu said. “But after his promotion he said
maybe we should wait until we can save enough money to pay for the mortgage.”
Little
research has been done in characteristics and relationship quality in long-term
couples like Wu and her boyfriend. More needs to be done to understand
cohabitors with intention to marry and set them apart in a group different from
the cohabitors who do not in future research.
People
chose to cohabit because they thought that doing so would improve their ability
to choose a better marriage partner (Hall & Zhao, 1995). However, much
research has proven that couples who cohabited before marriage were more likely
to divorce or separate than couples who did not. Although they had benefits in
terms of health and well-being over singles, they still had a lower quality in
their relationships than married couples did.
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