heterosexual couples. People who attend church frequently are more likely to disapprove of cohabitation than are those people who attend church infrequently or who do not attend church ever (Sweet & Bumpass, 1990, p. 5). People who attend church frequently also tend to view cohabitation as being "morally more offensive for women than for men (Stolzenberg, Blair-Loy, & Waite, 1995, p. 87).
As a general rule, females are more favorably disposed toward cohabitation than are males (Huffman, Chang, Rausch, & Schaffer, 1994, pp. 171-184). Older women more so than younger women are willing to enter a cohabiting relationship. A willingness to cohabit among women also is associated with lower levels of religiosity, more liberal attitudes toward sexual behavior, and less traditional views toward both marriage and societal sex roles. Males exhibiting a greater propensity for cohabitation are characterized by lower levels of religiosity, and by more tolerant views rape.
Women spend more time than men in the performance of household functions regardless of living situation--never married and living with parents, never married and living independently, cohabiting, married, divorced, or widowed (South & Spitze, 1994, pp. 327-347). The gender gap is highest, however, among married couples, while the gender gap is lowest among cohabiting couples. These findings may provide a basis for the finding reported above that women view cohabiting more favorably than do men as a general rule. Cohabitation may offer the best opportunity to develop gender equity, whereas marriage tends to be a symbol of traditional societal gender roles.
A propensity to enter a cohabiting relationship has been associated with lower socioeconomic classifications (Spanier, 1985, pp. 91-102). Because proportionately more Blacks and Hispanics than Anglos in the United States are found in the lower socioeconomic classifications, an assumption has followed that Blacks a...