Unmarried cohabitation in Japan

Miho Iwasawa, National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, Japan

I examine a trend and characteristics of unmarried cohabitation in Japan based on data from a national representative sample survey, the 1st SPFG(2004). I show that the number of partnerships and how this has changed over time. Among females aged 25-29, those currently cohabiting is less than three per cent, but more than one in five have some unmarried partnership experience including premarital cohabitation. I then focus on the type of first partnership in terms of whether it commences with marriage or cohabitation and, if the latter, whether it converts into first marriage. Among females with a first partnership and aged 20-39 at the time of the survey, one-fourth of them are first cohabited. The median duration of most recent cohabitation is about 15 months. According to the multivariate analysis, the likelihood of unmarried cohabitation experience is higher in less educated groups and the 1970s birth cohorts.