From Cohabitation to Marriage when a Child Is on the Way. A Comparison of three Former Socialist Countries: Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary

Abstract

Recent research shows that in Eastern European countries more partnerships begin as consensual unions than direct marriages, but that few couples remain in this living arrangement after conceiving or giving birth to a child since marriage continues to be the preferred context for childbearing and childrearing. This article investigates first time cohabitating women and their transition to marriage once a child is conceived or born in three former socialist countries. We conduct our analysis based on data from the Generations and Gender Survey and we model the duration of cohabitation. Conversion rate is the highest in Bulgaria and lowest in Hungary and highest during the first three years of relationships in all countries. During socialism, due to strong social pressures, once pregnancy occurred during cohabitation, there was a rush to marry before it become visible to others. After 1989, although pregnancy still triggers marriage, this happens at a later stage of the pregnancy against a background of decreased normative pressure in shaping people’s behaviors. In Romania and Bulgaria there is a positive educational gradient for conversion from cohabitation into marriage which is lacking in Hungary. In Romania and Bulgaria, cohabitation as a prelude to marriage or as a stage in the marital process appears to be a pattern for higher educated women, while the least educated persist in their non-marital behavior throughout their life course. In Hungary a pregnancy increases the marriage risks for all educational categories but does so least in case of high educated women.