Family attitudes and gender opinions of cohabiting and married mothers in Switzerland

Abstract

A regular increase of nonmarital births has been observed in Switzerland since the middle of the 1990s. This article aims first to investigate whether childbearing within cohabitation reflects a new living arrangement that replaces marriage or whether it is favored by poor economic circumstances. The second aim of this article is to examine whether married or cohabitant women can be distinguished based on their levels of subjective well-being (SWB), family attitudes, and gender opinions. Using a subsample of married and cohabitant mothers from the Swiss Household Panel (SHP), multilevel models reveal that childbearing within cohabitation in Switzerland does not reflect a pattern of disadvantage and that married and cohabitant mothers differ. Cohabitant mothers tend to be less satisfied with life in general, and tend to share a less traditional perspective on family, than married mothers. The research concludes that cohabitation could be considered an avant-garde family style that exhibits more equal division of tasks within the household.

Keywords:

• cohabitation
• marriage
• subjective well-being
• family attitudes
• gender opinions
• labor market
• Switzerland

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful for the insightful comments and suggestions from three anonymous reviewers who carefully revised this manuscript. The authors also thank Prof. Schoebi for his editorial help.

Notes

1. On 16 November 2011, the Federal Council adopted a law concerning joint parental rights. It went into effect on 1 July 2014 (Office fédéral de la justice, 2014).

2. Results from a multilevel analysis (not shown in the article) show, when controlling for sociodemographic variables, a significant association between marital status and both individual and household income. Cohabitant women have significantly higher individual and household incomes than married ones.

Additional information

Funding

This research has been realized using data collected by the ‘Living in Switzerland’ project conducted by the Swiss Household Panel (SHP), which is based at FORS – the Swiss Centre of Expertise in the Social Sciences – located at the University of Lausanne. The project is supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF).