1. Objectifs

Intentions :
«The goal of this study was to contribute to the comparative research on the marriage-cohabitation gap in money management practices and to explore the extent to which the differences between marriage and cohabitation depend on the meaning of cohabitation in society.» (p. 994)

Questions/Hypothèses :
«[H]ow the relative differences between marriage and cohabitation with respect to money allocation practices are conditioned by the institutional context of the society[?]» (p. 984)

2. Méthode

Échantillon/Matériau :
«[W]e used data from the Canadian GSS 2011 [2011 Canadian General Social Survey on families].» (p. 994)

Instruments :
Questionnaire

Type de traitement des données :
Analyse statistique

3. Résumé

«The data analysis showed that the legal status of the union is one of the strongest predictors of how couples handle their money in both regions. Moreover, the […] data did not provide a clear support for the hypothesis predicting that the gap separating married and cohabiting couples would be smaller in Quebec than in English Canada because of the higher level of institutionalization of cohabitation in the French province. Furthermore, the analysis […] showed that the presence of biological children does not compensate for the effect of union type and that having a child does not make cohabiting unions more marriagelike […]. Cohabiting couples forming a family with biological children only are still less likely to pool their resources than childless married couples. […] Our analysis […] suggests that marriage and cohabitation still represent different forms of engagement, even in societies in which cohabitation is widespread and high proportions of children are born to unmarried couples. Cohabitation is perhaps becoming more similar to marriage in terms of childbearing and mean duration in Quebec, but it remains a conjugal arrangement with lower levels of financial solidarity.» (p. 994-995)