Abstract
We used data from the Swedish Young Adult Panel Study to investigate effects of educational attainment and enrollment in higher education on the formation of new cohabitations. In the Swedish context virtually all new unions are cohabitations, that is, cohabitation is an alternative to being single rather than to marriage. Our analyses are based on a random sample of 658 single, childless adults aged 22, 26, or 30 years at the time of the first survey in 1999; this sample was then reinterviewed in 2003. Our model incorporates several pathways from education to union formation and cohabitation in particular: competing opportunities and resources afforded by education, competing activities and the partnership market associated with enrollment, and values or preferences associated with educational experiences. We found that the risk of cohabitation over the 4-year period was not associated with prior educational attainment or ongoing enrollment. With one exception, cohabitation was also unrelated to attitudes toward family and work. Women who placed high value on demanding careers were more likely to enter new cohabiting partnerships than were other women. In a relatively family-friendly, gender-egalitarian welfare state, such women are more attractive as partners. That is, resources associated with education appear to matter more than opportunity costs. On the other hand, an analysis of educational differences between those who already had a child or were in a union at the first survey produced the expected educational differential. We conclude that in the contemporary Swedish context, educational differentials in cohabitation are found primarily in the very early years of adulthood and/or matter more for the stronger commitments of formal marriage and childbearing.
