Department of Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, William H. Sewell Building, 1180 Observatory Drive, Madison, WI 53706, USA.
Demography. 2009 Nov;46(4):785-803. doi: 10.1353/dem.0.0075.
This article documents the prevalence, duration, and marital outcomes of cohabiting unions in Japan. It then examines the correlates of cohabitation experiences and also describes differences in the family-formation trajectories of women who have and have not cohabited. Cohabitation has increased rapidly among recent cohorts of women, and cohabiting unions in Japan tend to be relatively short in duration and are almost as likely to dissolve as to result in marriage. Life table analyses demonstrate that the cumulative probabilities of marriage and parenthood within marriage are roughly similar for women who did and those who did not cohabit. The most notable difference is in the pathways to family formation, with women who cohabited more likely both to marry subsequent to pregnancy and to delay childbearing within marriage. Taken as a whole, these results suggest that cohabiting unions in Japan are best viewed as an emerging prelude to marriage rather than as an alternative to marriage or singlehood. We conclude with speculation about the likelihood of further increases in cohabitation in Japan and the potential implications for marriage and fertility.
本文记录了日本同居关系的流行程度、持续时间和婚姻结果。然后，本文考察了同居经历的相关因素，并描述了有过和没有过同居经历的女性在家庭形成轨迹上的差异。在最近几代女性中，同居现象迅速增加，而且日本的同居关系往往持续时间相对较短，几乎与婚姻一样可能解体。生命表分析表明，有过和没有过同居经历的女性在婚姻内结婚和生育的累积概率大致相同。最显著的差异在于家庭形成的途径，有过同居的女性更有可能在怀孕后结婚，并在婚姻内延迟生育。总的来说，这些结果表明，日本的同居关系最好被视为婚姻的一个新兴前奏，而不是婚姻或单身的替代方式。最后，我们推测日本同居现象进一步增加的可能性以及对婚姻和生育的潜在影响。
