Marital delay, relationship dissolution and churning, and high divorce rates have extended the amount of time individuals in search of romantic relationships spend outside of marital unions. The scope of research on intimate partnering now includes studies of “hooking up,” Internet dating, visiting relationships, cohabitation, marriage following childbirth, and serial partnering, as well as more traditional research on transitions into marriage. Collectively, we know much more about relationship formation and development, but research often remains balkanized among scholars employing different theoretical approaches, methodologies, or disciplinary perspectives. The study of relationship behavior is also segmented into particular life stages, with little attention given to linkages between stages over the life course. Recommendations for future research are offered.

Over one half of young adults have lived or will live with a partner before marriage. Many studies indicate that the majority of cohabitors plan to marry their partners, yet research examining relationship progression is rare. This article deciphers the processes underlying entrance into informal unions. Data are from 25 open‐ended interviews with cohabitors who had lived together for at least 3 months. For many, the relationship progressed rapidly; over one half moved in with partners within 6 months of initiating romantic relationships. Primary reasons for cohabiting included finances, convenience, and housing needs; cohabiting as a trial marriage was not mentioned as the principal reason for moving in together. Plans for marriage remain abstract even when respondents determine that they and their partners are compatible.

We follow female college graduates in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 and compare the trajectories of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)-related occupations to other professional occupations. Results show that women in STEM occupations are significantly more likely to leave their occupational field than professional women, especially early in their career, while few women in either group leave jobs to exit the labor force. Family factors cannot account for the differential loss of STEM workers compared to other professional workers. Few differences in job characteristics emerge either, so these cannot account for the disproportionate loss of STEM workers. What does emerge is that investments and job rewards that generally stimulate field commitment, such as advanced training and high job satisfaction, fail to build commitment among women in STEM.

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Nonmarital cohabitation and marriage are now fundamentally linked, a fact that is routinely reflected in current research on union formation. Unprecedented changes in the timing, duration, and sequencing of intimate co‐residential relationships have made the study of traditional marriage far more complex today than in the past. It is now clear that a white, middle‐class, American‐centric research template has become increasingly anachronistic. In this review article, we begin by providing an overview of contemporary theory, empirical approaches, and demographic trends in cohabitation and marriage, focusing primarily on the United States, but also distinguishing the U.S. from patterns found in other high‐income societies, including European countries, Canada, Australia, and in East Asia. We place the spotlight on the causes and consequences of union transitions. We identify the commonalities between cohabitation and marriage, but also key differences that are expressed unevenly across different populations and cultural groups. The rise in nonmarital cohabitation has upended conventional theoretical models and measurement approaches to the study of traditional marriage, complicating matters but also reinvigorating family scholarship on union formation and its implications for partners, children, and society.

Creating Stepfamilies: Integrating Children Into the Study of Union Formation As a result of the growth in out-of-wedlock childbearing and union instability, adults contemplating forming a new union are often already parents. This article examines the role of children in stepfamily formation, both coresident and not, using the 2,594 respondents in the National Survey of Families and Households who were not living with a partner in 1987/ 1988. We consider children of the respondent and of the partner, which allows us to examine the determinants of entering a stepfamily. We found that being a coresident father dramatically increases forming a union with a woman with children. Women's coresidential children reduce women's odds of forming unions with men who do not have children and increase them for unions with men who do.

This article explores how living with parents affects the ways emerging adults construct their self-identity. Data are from in-depth interviews with 30 young adults who returned to live with their origin family after a period of residential autonomy. Respondents perceive adulthood as a psychological state, attained through a process of assuming responsibility for one's actions and learning how to interact with other adults (particularly parents) from a position of equality. Nonetheless, an economic component remains important, mentioned by respondents who contributed to the family economy and those who sought to avoid doing so. Successfully viewing oneself as an adult is gendered, with daughters less likely to perceive themselves as equals in interactions with parents.