Does cohabitation provide weaker intergenerational bonds than marriage? A comparison between Italy and the United Kingdom

In the literature, cohabitation rather than marriage is presented as an indicator of weakening intergenerational ties, either as a cause or an effect. In this paper we compare the frequency of face to face and telephone contacts in two countries – Italy and the UK – where the incidence of cohabiting instead of, or before, marrying is very different. Our analysis of empirical evidence, based on an ordered category response multilevel model, does not support the hypothesis that in the former country, where cohabitation is still an exception, differences in parent-adult children contacts between cohabitant and married children are much greater than in the latter, where cohabitation is more common and since a long time. While in the UK cohabitation does not seem to have an impact on frequency of contacts, in Italy, cohabitation only lowers slightly the proportion of those who visit daily and increases the (marginal) proportion of those who have no contacts, but not the frequency of phone contacts. Also the hypothesis that duration of cohabitation makes a difference is not supported. The main difference we found, in both countries, is that cohabitant couples tend to live farther away from their parents than married ones. This affects frequency of face to face contacts. These data support the thesis that in the UK cohabitation and marriage are becoming increasingly similarly accepted patterns of partnership formation, which do not affect in distinct ways intergenerational relationships. They also support the thesis that, in Italy, cohabiting instead of marrying is a polarized phenomenon: in the majority of cases it is supported, if not rendered possible, by parents, while in a small minority is accompanied by estrangement. The differential strategies of residential choices by married and cohabitant couples, in both countries, remain, however, an open issue.