SIAS 13 Seguimiento de Observaciones de Auditorías Reportadas

The present study was designed to contribute to the existing research about the diffusion of unmarried cohabitation in different social classes by demonstrating its socioeconomic macro-level associations in Latin America and in fully developed countries.

Cohabitation practiced by higher educated women is described by the Second Demographic Transition (SDT) theoretical framework as an outcome of modernity. At the same time, a second type of cohabitation, in Latin America referred to as traditional, is found among the lower social classes in all countries under observation. In order to demonstrate the associations between contexts in which these two types of cohabitation occur, we correlate their incidence with levels of socioeconomic development, social and gender inequality, as well as the ideational environment of Latin American and developed countries. With this goal in mind we compared data derived from IPUMS, Censuses, the European Social Survey (ESS) and the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) to the socioeconomic indicators of the Human Development Report and to the

dimensions of post-modern values provided by the World and Values Survey (WVS).

A general increase of cohabitation over time in different age and educational groups is presented and indicates that cohabitation is not an exclusive outcome of socioeconomic development and post-materialist values. Comparing cohabitation in Latin America with developed countries we demonstrated that in the latter, cohabitation is more visible in the higher educated social strata, although it also exists among the lower social classes.

Positive socioeconomic contexts, in terms of socioeconomic development and social and gender inequality, all relate to the incidence of cohabitation among higher educated women; and the opposite to the incidence of this type of union among lower educated ones. However, it was shown that some countries with high socioeconomic development and low social inequality present similar levels of cohabitation to countries with opposite socioeconomic outcomes. This is the case for the countries labeled as developed-religious, such as Ireland, Italy and the United States, that have similar incidence of the two types of cohabitation of some Latin American countries, such as Chile, Costa Rica, Brazil and Mexico. This is probably due to the similarity of these countries in terms of value orientations.

The results on value orientations are less clear. Cohabitation by lower educated women occurs among less tolerant and more traditional groups.

However, based on the analysis presented here, we cannot attest that the occurrence of cohabitation among higher educated women is related to contexts of higher tolerance. This is possibly true for fully developed countries, but it we cannot say the same for Latin America. It is probable that the recent socioeconomic development observed in the region was not enough to change people’s values. It can be related to the degree of socioeconomic development in the region or to the fact that it occurred quite recently. According to the post materialist theory of Ronald Inglehart, socioeconomic development changes people’s values in their formative years (Inglehart, 1971). Consequently, these results suggest that the increasing incidence of cohabitation in Latin America is more driven by increasing

socioeconomic opportunities for women, e.g. education, labor market or availability of modern contraception, than by value orientations.

Another interesting result is related to the context of gender inequality in which cohabitations happen. Although our results show that cohabitation among higher educated women is more likely to occur in places with lower gender inequality, it was not possible to say the same for Latin America. Recent data (from around 2010) shows that most Latin American countries are outliers in this correlation and that higher educated Latin American women are cohabitating, even in countries with higher gender inequality. This result can be derived by the fact that the Gender Inequality Index (GII) penalizes less developed countries for poor outcomes in reproductive health indicators (Permanyer, 2013), but can be also related to the fast increase in cohabitation among higher educated women.

Considering that the gender inequality index is based on indicators that are related to social inequality, such as maternal mortality ratio, adolescent fertility rate, proportion of women with at least secondary education and women’s labor force participation rate (UNDP, 2013), it is also possible that this result has decreased due to the levels of social inequality found in the region.

Taken together, these findings are in line with previous research suggesting that the existence of different types of cohabitation is not unique to Latin America.

In addition to cohabitation among higher educated groups, which is related to modernity and socioeconomic advantage, developed countries also have a type of cohabitation related to poverty. However, while in Latin America the so-called traditional cohabitation, driven by socioeconomic deprivation, is the most noticeable, in developed countries the modern type of cohabitation among higher educated groups is more evident. This dissimilarity is easily explained by the different levels of socioeconomic development found in Latin America and the remaining countries under observation. Yet, the background for the cohabitation among the poor is evident: limited access to basic human needs such as education and health, higher gender and social inequalities, and, probably as a consequence, traditional and intolerant ethics.

Consequently, the findings of the current study do not completely support the idea that the increasing incidence of cohabitation in Latin America is explained by the Second Demographic Transition framework. Although the incidence of cohabitation among higher educated groups in Latin America can be explained by some features of this theoretical framework, such as the association of this type of consensual union with socioeconomic development, other components of the theory could not be verified. This is the case for value orientations and gender relations, as well as the increasing incidence of cohabitation among lower educated groups. Considering the former, it is possible that socioeconomic development was not enough to guarantee changes in value orientations and in gender relations.

However, regarding the increasing incidence of cohabitation among lower educated groups, it is probable that the historical explanations for the existence of this type of unions are still valid, meaning that this type of union is driven by poverty and social exclusion.

An implication of these findings is that both traditional and modern types of cohabitation should be taken into account when public policies are planned. In this sense, policy makers should keep in mind that the meaning of cohabitation can be different for dissimilar groups of cohabitants. Accordingly, family legislations should be strong enough to protect the common property of cohabitants and the rights of their children but also flexible enough to not penalize young couples cohabiting as a trial period before marriage or just a co-residential dating relationship with unnecessary duties. An interesting example of this type of legislation is adopted in Brazil, where cohabitation is recognized as a type of marriage by law, but cohabitants have the right to create ex-ante personal contracts delimitating their rights and obligations (for more information see Marcondes, 2011).

Besides the limitations related to the use of macro-level analysis and zero-order correlations, already discussed in the text, our findings are also limited by the use of a cross-sectional design; hence the current study was not intended to estimate causal relations to the occurrence of one type of cohabitation or another.

Contrary, the aim was to illustrate the possible societal features related to the incidence of different types of cohabitation in different social groups. In this sense, further research based on individual level and longitudinal data is needed before these relationships are more clearly understood, along with the causes and motivations of cohabitation for diverse social classes. The next chapters of this thesis address a number of these limitations by showing the main features of Latin American cohabitants as well as where they live. In this sense Chapter 4 illustrates the socioeconomic and cultural features of cohabitation in Brazil; Chapter 5 presents a typology of the different types of cohabitation in Latin America; Chapter 6 discusses gender equality in terms of decision making; and Chapter 7 distinguishes the previously identified types of cohabitation from marriage in terms of gender symmetry and environmental influences.

Appendix Chapter 3.1. Data description¹⁴

Data used to compute the correlation between country-education levels of cohabitation and socioeconomic (HDI) and social inequality (GINI) indexes (Figure 3.3)

Country Cohabitation HDI

14 Listwise deletion for missing values

Data used to compute the correlation between country-education levels of cohabitation and country-education value orientations (Figure 3.5)

Country Cohabitation WVS

Year

Source Year

Argentina IPUMS 2001 1999

Brazil IPUMS 2000 1997

Chile IPUMS 2002 2000

Colombia IPUMS 2005 2005

Mexico IPUMS 2000 2000

Spain IPUMS 2001 2000

Venezuela IPUMS 2001 2000

United States NSFG 2002 1999

Finland ESS 2002 2005

Italy ESS 2002 2005

Sweden ESS 2002 1999

Data used to compute the correlation between country-education levels of cohabitation and the Gender Inequality Index - GII (Figure 3.6)

Country Cohabitation

4. Socioeconomic and cultural features of cohabitation