Understanding Women’s Heightened Risk of Violence in Common-Law Unions

Abstract

Cohabiting women’s heightened risk of violence is a well-established relationship but one that is not fully understood. Using a recently collected representative sample of 7,396 Canadian women, the results of the present study show that the cohabitation-violence relationship persists. However, over a 6-year period, the prevalence of violence against women in cohabiting unions declined dramatically relative to marital unions. The results of the analyses suggest that the increasing prevalence of cohabitation has reduced the selection bias, in turn causing cohabitors’ and “marrieds”’ relationships to become increasingly similar. Nevertheless, the results also suggest that cohabitors remain a select group, and this differential selection is responsible for the persistence of their higher likelihood of violence. Overall, the results suggest that cohabitation will need to become much more prevalent before parity in rates of violence will be achieved between cohabitors and marrieds in Canada.