Resumen

FLOREZ, Elizabeth  y  ESTEVE, Albert. Marriage and cohabitation in Venezuela, 1971-2001 ¿Fuzzy boundaries?. Pap. poblac [online]. 2014, vol.20, n.80, pp.217-247. ISSN 2448-7147.

Unmarried cohabitation has increased in Venezuela since the 90s and it has extended to social groups and regions that used to have low levels of cohabitation. Within this context, we examine differences between cohabiting and married couples over time. To this end we use harmonized census microdata from the censuses 1971, 1981, 1990 and 2001. Results show that cohabiting couples were more likely to be in nuclear households and show higher gender differences between spouses than married couples regarding age and labor force participation. However, these differences have decreased over time and in 2001 are not longer significant, even controlling for educational attainment. Our results suggest that socio-economic differences between cohabiting and married individuals account for most of the differences between the two types of union.

Palabras llave : Cohabitation; marriage; Venezuela; family context; gender differences.