| Summary: | Perhaps no social phenomenon reflects more clearly the changing values in Canadian society than cohabitation, that is, a heterosexual couple living together outside of marriage. Between 1981 and 1996, according to Canadian census data, the number of cohabitating couples more than doubled, from 356,000 to more than 920,000, and over the same period common-law unions increased from 6 per cent to 14 per cent of all heterosexual unions. In Cohabitation: An Alternative Form of Family Living, Zheng Wu examines the implications of this phenomenon from the points of view of sociology, demography, and economics, using data from the Canadian census, the 1990 and 1995 cycles of the General Social Survey, and the 1984 Canadian Fertility Survey. Specific topics considered include cohabitation trends, shifting attitudes in the populace, how and why people choose cohabitation as an alternative to or 'trial' for marriage, child-bearing, the breakup of relationships, the individual and societal consequences of cohabitation, and the future of this form of family living. In the concluding chapter, Professor Wu considers also the legal and public policy implications of the remarkable demographic shift represented by cohabitation.
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