Health and well-being in cohabitation versus marriage: Are cohabitants’ marriage intentions important?

Abstract

We investigated the similarities and differences in health and well-being for individuals in cohabiting relationships compared to marriage, enriching the extant literature by differentiating cohabitants with the intention to marry from those with no intention to marry. We used 18 waves of panel data from the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey (n = 2820) and fixed-effects models to examine within-individual differences in general health, mental health, and life satisfaction across different relationship states and transitions among men and women. Differentiating outcomes when respondents are cohabitants with and without intention to marry was important, and our r..