Cohabitation,Gender,and Happiness

Abstract

Research commonly finds married people to be slightly happier than unmarried cohabitors—the phenomenon referred to as the cohabitation gap. In this article, we examine several relationships. First, we consider whether there are gender differences in the cohabitation gap; second, whether these gender differences are the same in different countries; and third, whether national differences in the gender role norms and gender equity in economic empowerment can explain these cross-national variations. Relying on the psychological theories of social norms, we differentiate between societal and personal gender role norms. We found that in societies with more liberal societal gender role norms, the cohabitation gap for women but not for men is substantially reduced. This effect was independent from women’s personal gender role norms as well as a country’s gender equity in economic empowerment. The findings are discussed in relation to the theories of social norms and gender conformity.

Keywords

happiness social norms gender cohabitation marriage

Does a man have to know how to earn money to be considered a successful man? Does a woman have to marry a man who knows how to earn money to be considered a successful woman? No matter how odd such requirements might seem in most of Europe and North America, they are still in force in some cultures. For instance, the majority of young Russian women believe their society sees marriage as the primary component of women’s happiness (White, 2005). In contrast, most Americans think that both men and women can lead satisfying lives remaining single (Kaufman & Goldscheider, 2007).

In other words, being unmarried is a status that is less consistent with the female gender role in some cultures than in others. What happens to those who do not “play” their gender role well enough? It is known from the research in social norms and gender conformity that the possible consequences of not meeting social expectations are social sanctions like disapproval and rejection, which have negative implications for one’s self-related emotions and self-concept (Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004; Grimmell, 1998; Sanderson, Darley, & Messinger, 2002; Wood, Christensen, Hebl, & Rothgerber, 1997). Can we then expect a woman who lives with her partner in unmarried cohabitation to have higher psychological costs than her partner, a married woman, or a married man? Will this be the case only for women living in countries with strictly traditional gender role norms?

The existing literature suggests that unmarried cohabitors (both men and women) are more likely to report lower relationship quality and life satisfaction than their married counterparts—a phenomenon that is commonly referred to as cohabitation gap. The proposed explanations of the cohabitation gap typically include selection on the basis of sociodemographic and personality characteristics (e.g., Soons & Liefbroer, 2008) and differences in relationship quality, stability, and commitment (Nock, 1995; Skinner, Bahr, Crane, & Call, 2002; Stafford, Kline, & Rankin, 2004).

Recently, Soons and Kalmijn (2009) suggested that cohabitation gap depends on the country’s cultural characteristics. Indeed, they found that married people were significantly happier than cohabitors only in countries where cohabitation is not common. On the one hand, the selection into cohabitation might be even stronger in these countries: Cohabitors represent a small selective group of people who significantly differ from the majority of the population. Thus, these differences and not the cohabitation per se can lead to differences in happiness. On the other hand, in countries where cohabitation is not common, cohabitors are a marginal social group that deviates from the norm of the married majority. DePaulo and colleagues (DePaulo & Morris, 2006; Morris, Sinclair, & DePaulo, 2007) showed that marital status (for example, being single) can be the basis of stereotypes and discrimination. Consequently cohabitors, like singles, can become subject to social disapproval or even stigmatization, which explains their lower happiness levels. Hence, there is abundant research attempting to explain the cohabitation gap. Yet the literature examining whether cohabitation affects men’s and women’s happiness differently is scarce, and studies looking at this question in the context of cross-national research are, to our awareness, nonexistent.

This research aims to fill this gap. We examine cross-cultural variations in gender differences in the effect of cohabitation on happiness. We explain such differences in terms of cultural differences in gender role norms. We suggest that the inconsistency of an individual’s marital status with socially defined gender-role standards would negatively affect their subjective evaluation of happiness. For example, in countries where the social norm with respect to female gender roles is defined in more traditional terms (as a wife), women who live with their partners before (or instead) marriage can be considered to violate this norm and are more likely to be exposed to social disapproval. Consequently, they are more likely to report lower happiness scores.

In the following, we refer to the degree to which men and women are expected to follow their traditional gender roles as the societal gender role norm. Using data from 30 countries, we investigate whether gender differences in the happiness effect of marital status vary across countries and whether these variations can be explained by countries’ differences in the societal gender role norm. In addition, we examine whether cohabiting women feel disadvantaged because their cohabitation status contradicts their own expectations related to their gender—their personal gender role norm. Finally, we test whether cross-national variations in gender differences in the happiness effect of cohabitation can be alternatively explained by cross-national differences in gender equity regarding economic opportunities.

Marriage, Cohabitation, and Gender: Happiness Effect

The question of whether men or women benefit more from marriage (in comparison to singlehood) has been part of the family research agenda for decades. Bernard’s (1972) male-dominance-of-marriage-hypothesis considered marriage as a patriarchal institution that supports the interests of men and undermines those of women. This theory was backed up by a number of studies indicating that married women had much higher rates of mental illness than married men, whereas this relationship was reversed for single men and women (Gove, 1972, 1973; Gove & Tudor, 1973). At that time, this psychological vulnerability of married women was attributed to the traditional role women play in marriage. Married women are more involved in household work, which is a low prestige occupation; family is often the only source of personal gratification for unemployed housewives, whereas employed married women can be overwhelmed combining a job with the burden of the household work.

In addition, men’s greater benefits from marriage can be explained by the health and social network advantages they derive from their unions. For instance, married men can benefit indirectly from the social connections of their wives, who tend to have larger networks of friends and acquaintances than their husbands (Carbery & Buhrmester, 1998; Dykstra & De Jong-Gierveld, 2004; Pugliesi & Shook, 1998). In addition, married women tend to provide more emotional support and even control the health behavior of their spouses (through diet improvement, reduction of smoking and alcohol consumption, etc.), which has a positive influence on men’s health and well-being (Umberson, 1992).

The antipode to the male-dominance-hypothesis is the female-dominance hypothesis—the perspective suggesting that women derive greater psychological benefits than men from marriage (Evans & Kelley, 2004). This hypothesis builds primarily on the importance women typically attach to marriage (Wood, Rhodes, & Whelan, 1989). Marriage is often supposed to be a more significant event in a woman’s than in a man’s life. Media and literature have abundant examples of caricatures presenting these sex roles: an eager bride and a reluctant groom. Indeed, studies have shown that women find marital satisfaction more important than men (Glenn, 1975; Glenn & Weaver, 1981; Ng, Loy, Gudmunson, & Cheong, 2009; Snir, Harpaz, & Ben-Baruch, 2009). This view is backed up by gender differences in self-construal: men tend to have the independent while women the interdependent self-construal (Cross & Madson, 1997).

Finally, the hypothesis that marriage benefits the psychological well-being of both genders to the same extent has found the most empirical support: Numerous studies indicate that marriage is beneficial for both genders in terms of life satisfaction (K. Williams, 2003) and mental health (Bierman, Fazio, & Milkie, 2006; Simon, 2002; Waite, 2000; Waite & Gallagher, 2000; K. Williams, 2003).

Gender differences in the benefits of marriage in comparison to informal cohabitation have been only marginally studied. However, taking into account the decline of marriage and the rise of informal cohabitation taking place in most modern societies, we believe that the question of gender differences in the happiness effect of marriage versus cohabitation deserves research attention as well. There is some empirical evidence that the cohabitation gap is larger for men than for women, at least for middle-aged and older adults. For example, Brown and colleagues (Brown, Bulanda, & Lee, 2005; Brown & Kawamura, 2010) examined the relationship between marital status, relationship quality, and depressive symptoms in nationally representative samples of American men and women over 50. They found that official marriage is related to higher relationship satisfaction and better mental health in comparison to cohabitation, but only for men.

Based on other research findings (Rhoades, Stanley, & Markman, 2006, 2009), we would suggest that the psychological well-being of women is more likely to be negatively affected by cohabitation. For example, Rhoades et al. (2006) found that cohabiting men are prone to be less committed to their relationships than cohabiting women. Furthermore, men were found to be more likely than women to start living together as a test of the relationship—a motive which was shown to be related to lower adjustment, confidence, dedication, and other relationship problems (Rhoades et al., 2009). Taking this into account, cohabiting women are likely to suffer from a perceived lack of commitment from their partners, which can negatively affect their general happiness.

Yet despite these considerations, most studies find no significant gender differences in the effect of marriage versus cohabitation on mental health (Marcussen, 2005), life satisfaction (Diener, Gohm, Suh, & Oishi, 2000; Evans & Kelley, 2004; Hansen, Moum, & Shapiro, 2007), happiness (Stack & Eshleman, 1998), social well-being (Shapiro & Keyes, 2008), loneliness (Stack, 1998), and relationship quality (Brown, 2004; Hsueh, Morrison, & Doss, 2009; Nock, 1995).

Most of these studies were conducted in Western industrialized countries with relatively high levels of gender egalitarianism (the United States, Scandinavian countries, and Australia). We consider this restriction in country samples as a possible reason why these studies failed to detect gender differences in the happiness effect of cohabitation. In this article, we approach this problem by considering a large number of countries that differ in their economic development and cultural norms.

We suggest that the difference in gains from marriage for men versus women largely depends on the context and, namely, on a society’s gender role norms. In countries with strong gender stereotyping, the society has different standards for male and female gender roles: To conform to these standards, a woman is usually expected to commit herself to the family and a man is expected to commit himself to his career (Albert & Porter, 1986; Eagly & Mladinic, 1989; J. Williams et al., 1979). There are many different ways in which men and women can violate such norms: the former by being joblessness or having low earnings, the latter by choosing not to have children, working long hours, or living with a partner unwed.

Social Influence and Gender Conformity

To explain the effect of conformity in marital status on happiness, we build on the social influence (Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004) and gender conformity (Wood et al., 1997) literature.

The social influence literature suggests that people’s underlying motivational goals lead to conformity to social norms. Deutsch and Gerard (1955) distinguished between informational and normative conformity motivations. The former is based on the need to make an accurate judgment about reality and behave effectively, the latter on the goal to be positively accepted by others. On the basis of this classification, Cialdini, Reno, and Kallgren (1990) developed the concept of descriptive and injunctive norms. Descriptive norms are inferred from the information about what other people do, whereas injunctive norms are based on the information about approval or disapproval of others. The definition suggests that nonconformity to injunctive norms is likely to have negative consequences for one’s emotions and self-concept, as these norms are based on others’ evaluative attitudes (Christensen, Rothgerber, Wood, & Matz, 2004; Cialdini et al., 1990).

Apart from the differences in informational and normative influence, social norms are distinguished according to the degree they are internalized (Campbell, 1964; Schwartz, 1977). In this sense, social norms represent external normative influence; they are not internalized but based on other’s expectations and enforced through social external sanctions (rewards or punishments). Personal norms lie on the opposite pole of the internalization dimension. They represent self-expectations that are consistent with an individual’s internalized values and are enforced through internal sanctions (feelings of guilt, negative self-evaluations, self-esteem loss, etc.).

To explain the effect of conformity to gender norms on psychological health, the existing psychological literature focused almost exclusively on personal norms (Grimmell & Stern, 1992; Wood et al., 1997). According to this perspective, gender norms are considered as personal standards against which one’s own behavior and other aspects of the self are evaluated. Psychological research typically finds that the higher the perceived gap between the actual gender-related self-concept and the ideal gender-related self-concept, the more prone an individual is to depression, anxiety, and other mental health problems (Grimmell, 1998; Grimmell & Stern, 1992; Sanderson et al., 2002; Sanderson, Wallier, Stockdale, & Yopyk, 2008). For example, in one of Wood et al.’s experiments, male and female participants were exposed to slides representing dominant (female boxer practicing with her coach) versus communal (a father showing a greeting card to his wife and children) experiences. The results demonstrated that norm-congruent (dominant for men and communal for women) experiences induced positive feelings and brought participants’ self-concept closer to the ideal only when the gender role norms were relevant for participants’ self-evaluation (Wood et al., 1997).

Building on the social influence and gender conformity literature presented above, we examine the effect of both societal and personal gender role norms on the relationship between marital status, gender, and happiness. In the present article, both societal and personal norms have an injunctive meaning—they reflect the degree of approval or disapproval of deviations from the traditional gender role (as mother and housekeeper for women and bread winner for men). We define the societal gender role norm as the degree to which a society approves or disapproves of how much a person deviated from his or her traditional gender role. We define the personal gender role norm as the degree to which a person shares the societal gender role norm themselves.

Although the existing literature in gender conformity has focused primarily on the effect of personal gender norms on well-being, in this study we consider the effect of both societal and personal gender role norms. In contrast to the present research, most studies in gender conformity were restricted to one country, so the cross-cultural variability in gender norms was not accounted for. The variations in an individual’s own perception of societal gender norms were not considered either. For example, in the study by Wood et al. (1997), it was assumed that dominant experiences are congruent with male behavior and communal with female behavior, independently of participants’ own perception of what society expects from men and women. Such designs exclude the possibility that the participants’ emotional well-being might be affected by feelings of social disapproval resulting from nonconformity to societal gender norms (which they might not share themselves). To account for such a pattern, in the present study, we compare individuals who (a) differ in their personal gender role norm and (b) live in societies with different societal gender role norm. As both societal and personal norms in our study have an injunctive meaning (are based on social approval or disapproval), we expect both of them to moderate the relationship between marital status, gender, and happiness.

Why do we expect that gender role norms would affect cohabiting women’s happiness? Gender role norms reflect the degree to which men and women are expected to stick to their traditional gender roles. With regard to women, living together with a partner before (or instead of) marriage may be consistent with the role of housekeeper but is not (completely) consistent with the role of wife. Hence, we expect cohabiting women to be as happy as married women in countries with more liberal gender role norms. In contrast, in countries where being a wife is more central to women’s self-concept, cohabiting women are expected to be less happy than married women.

We expect the personal gender role norm to be in the same direction: Cohabiting women with a more liberal personal gender role norm are expected to be as happy as married women, whereas cohabiting women with a more conservative personal gender role norm are expected to be significantly less happy than married women.

In contrast to women, cohabitation does not cut across men’s traditional gender role: A cohabiting man can be a successful “breadwinner.” From this point of view, cohabitation per se is not a violation of the gender role norm for men. On the other hand, having no official family that a man can “win bread for” may be perceived as nonconformity to the traditional male role as well. In addition, cohabiting men are often not that successful from an economic point of view (Oppenheimer, 2003; Smock & Manning, 1997; Wiik, Bernhardt, & Noack, 2010), and cohabiting couples are actually said to shift to a female breadwinner model (Hamplova, 2002). This contradicts men’s gender role norm and may negatively affect their subjective well-being. Hence, for women, cohabitation represents an explicit violation of the gender role norm, whereas for men it is rather of implicit nature. Therefore, our analysis for men is rather of an explorative nature.

Finally, societal expectations for gender roles are only one of the domains of gender relations. Another domain is gender equity in access to economic resources and power. More than 30 years ago, Becker, Landes, and Michael (1977) suggested that increasing women’s economic participation and independence reduce their gains from marriage. Therefore, the degree of female economic participation and empowerment could be an alternative explanation of cross-national gender differences in the effect of marriage on well-being.

We hypothesize that in countries where women are economically disadvantaged (are less active in the labor market, make less money, and have lower access to high-ranked positions compared to men), marriage appears to be particularly attractive to women. First, it is likely to improve their financial situation. Second, marriage with its legal regulations of parties’ rights and duties ensures additional mechanisms (right of maintenance during pregnancy and child allowances, for instance) that protect women from separation-related financial losses and augment their feeling of security and well-being in comparison to their cohabiting counterparts. All these advantages of marriage become insignificant when women’s economic activity, earned incomes, and power approximate that of men. Based on this argument, we hypothesize that high gender equity in economic opportunities in a country can make women’s gains from marriage comparable to that of cohabitation.

Method

The data for the analysis come from the Family and Changing Gender Roles Module of the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP). ISSP is a continuous cross-national collaboration that combines cross-national and time-series approaches. We used the data from the third wave of the Family and Changing Gender Role Module, collected in 2002 from large and nationally representative samples (the number of countries in the previous waves was too small for a multilevel analysis). A random sampling procedure (multi-stage) was used to ensure the representativeness of the data.

For the present analysis, we selected currently married or cohabiting respondents. The final working sample after elimination of cases with missing data (3,444 participants) comprised 22,285 participants from 30 countries. The countries contributed between 273 cases (former East Germany) and 1,333 (Spain). The country descriptive statistics are presented in Table 1.

Table 1.

Country Characteristics (N = 30)

	N	Gender Equity in Economic Opportunities(z Score)^a	Gender Role Norm^b
Australia	912	.66	2.89
Germany, West	597	.10	2.58
Germany, East	273	.10	2.23
Great Britain	1,009	.21	2.75
Northern Ireland	423	.21	2.90
USA	596	1.12	2.89
Austria	1,009	−1.02	2.77
Hungary	592	.24	3.46
Ireland	631	−1.20	2.79
Netherlands	706	−.58	2.65
Norway	961	.75	2.37
Sweden	641	1.13	2.49
Czech Republic	701	−.01	3.30
Poland	634	.52	3.30
Bulgaria	612	.59	3.33
Russia	893	.99	3.36
New Zealand	660	.90	2.74
Israel	732	−.32	2.73
Spain	1,333	−.89	2.77
Latvia	544	1.17	3.14
Slovak Republic	677	.23	3.54
France	1,223	.43	2.67
Cyprus	515	−1.30	3.00
Republic of Chile	899	−1.61	3.39
Denmark	775	.45	2.36
Switzerland	504	−.57	2.87
Flanders	805	−.35	3.03
Brazil	980	−.85	3.61
Finland	718	.56	2.87
Mexico	730	−1.67	3.39

Includes the female economic activity rate, the share of high status women, and the ratio of estimated female-to-male earned income.

Higher values indicate countries with more traditional gender role norms.

Dependent variable

Happiness was measured with the question, “If you were to consider your life in general, how happy or unhappy would you say you are, on the whole?” on a 7-point Likert-type scale ranging from completely happy to completely unhappy. The values were rescaled so that higher scores correspond to higher levels of happiness.

Union type

The dummy variable “cohabitors” was created on the basis of the question about respondent’s marital status and the presence of a steady life partner with whom the respondent lives (“Do you live together with a steady partner?”). The variable “cohabitors” indicates whether a person is married (0) or lives together with a steady partner (1).

Societal gender role norm

This variable reflects the degree to which the society forbids that a person deviates from traditional gender roles. The norm measure was constructed from the following three items (on a 5-point scale ranging from agree to disagree): “A job is all right but what most women really want is a home and children”; “Being a housewife is just as fulfilling as working for pay”; and “A man’s job is to earn money; a woman’s job is to look after the home and family.” Higher scores indicate less egalitarian attitudes and correspond to a more conservative or traditional gender role norm. These three items were combined to produce the scale (Cronbach’s α .66). The mean values for each country were used as the country-level measure of the societal gender role norm.¹

Personal gender role norm refers to one’s own gender role norm and represents the degree to which a person shares the dominant beliefs about gender roles in their society. The personal gender role norm was measured with the equivalent three items in the same manner (s. the societal gender role norm).

Background variables

As happiness was found to depend on a large number of sociodemographic variables (Diener & Suh, 1999), we control for most of them in the analysis. The employment relation was defined through the dummy variables “unemployed,” “employed” (full- or part-time), and “not in the labor force” (including students, retirees, housewives, etc.). To measure the family income, the respondents were asked to indicate the total household income from all sources. Due to country differences in question formulation, the reported income values were divided by the national mean (calculated from all respondents in a particular country) so that the family income is relative to the national average (1 when it matches the national average, 2 when it is double as high as the average, 0.5 when it is half the average, etc.). Unfortunately, there were about 25% missing values in the sample. To avoid further sample reduction, the missing values were coded to the mean income in each country. As suggested by Cohen and Cohen (1983) and Cohen, Cohen, West, and Aiken (2003), we added an indicator-dummy variable for missing values to control for selectivity. Level of education was operationalized as a continuous variable (with six steps) ranging from no formal education to university degree qualification. Religiosity was measured as a dummy variable indicating that the respondent does not belong to any religious denomination.

Gender equity in economic opportunities

This measure is supposed to capture the degree to which women have equal opportunities in economic participation, as well as access to economic resources and power, which makes them independent from men and the traditional institution of marriage. Taking this definition into consideration, we chose the following measures as indicators of gender equity in economic opportunities: the female economic activity rate as percentage of male rate, the share of female legislators, senior officials and managers (as percentage of male rate), and the ratio of estimated female to male earned income.² All measures reflect women’s position in access to economic resources in relation to that of men. The indicator of gender equity in economic opportunity was then calculated as a simple average of these three measures (Cronbach’s α .75).

Analytic Procedure

To estimate the joint effect of the union type and gender on happiness as a function of country-level normative context, we use a series of two-level hierarchical linear models. The advantage of using multilevel models is that they allow one to determine what portion of variance in happiness is explained by individual characteristics (e.g., union type and gender) and what portion is explained by national characteristics (e.g., the societal gender role norm). In addition, the slopes of individual effects can be modeled as random: The between-country variations in the strength of the individual effects can be explained by country characteristics. Hence, we can estimate whether cohabitation is equally detrimental for men’s and women’s happiness in, for instance, the Slovak Republic (where the gender role norm is conservative) and Norway (where it is more liberal).

Results

Figure 1 presents the differences in happiness scores of married and cohabiting men and women for every single country. The general pattern suggests that married people are happier in the majority of countries, with the exception of Austria, Czech Republic, Poland, Israel, and Flanders (Belgium), where cohabitation is related to higher happiness scores for both genders. Gender differences in the effect of cohabitation or marriage are observed in 21 out of 30 countries.

Figure 1.

Difference in Happiness Scores of Married and Cohabiting Men and Women, Country Averages

Apart from gender differences in the cohabitation gap, the analyzed countries vary with respect to the gender role norm as well as gender equity in economic opportunities (Table 1). The degree of adherence to the societal gender role norm differs across countries. The former East Germans appear to be the most egalitarian (M = 2.23, SD = 1.00), whereas the Brazilians (M = 3.61, SD = 1.15) are the most traditional. The female economic activity rates suggest that in some countries, the number of women in the labor force is half of the number of men (Chile or Mexico), whereas in Scandinavian and Eastern European countries, the female economic activity rate reaches about 80% of the male rate. Men’s earnings are higher than women’s in all countries as well. Yet in Austria and Latin America, women tend to earn only about 30% of men’s average earnings, whereas in Australia, Scandinavia, and some Eastern European counties, women’s earnings reach 70% to 80% of men’s earnings. Finally, the country differences with respect to the ratio of women to men in high-status positions are also substantial and range from 21% in Cyprus to 73% in the United States.

Interestingly, countries with relatively low female participation in the workforce do not necessarily have conservative attitudes toward gender roles (r = −.20, p = .29).³ For example, in both Latvia and the United States, females’ economic activity and influence are relatively high. However, in the United States, women are not expected to follow their traditional roles so much as in Latvia.

Multilevel Regression Results

Overall, we estimate seven multilevel regression models: the baseline model with the interaction term of gender and marital status (Model 1, Table 2), the models which explain cross-national variations in the interaction term with the societal gender role norm (Model 2, Table 3), personal gender role norm (Model 3, Table 3), and gender equity in economic participation (Model 4, Table 3). The final two models test the robustness of the effect of the societal gender role norm on the interaction term by controlling for one’s personal gender role norm (Model 5, Table 3) and gender equity in economic participation (Model 6, Table 3).

Table 2.

A Random-Intercept-And-Slope Model on Happiness

		Model 1
	B	SE	ß
Intercept	5.52***	.04	5.38***
Union type (cohabitors = 1)	−.12***	.02	−.04***
Gender (female = 1)	−.12***	.02	−.06***
Union Type × Gender	.05	.04	.01
Age	−.00***	.00	−.07***
Household income	.04**	.01	.04**
Income missing values (1 = yes)	.06**	.02	.02**
Unemployed	−.21***	.04	−.05***
Employed	−.06**	.02	−.03**
Religion (1 = no)	−.09***	.02	−.04***
Education	.03**	.01	.04**
Variance components
Var (intercept)		.059*** (.243)
Var (Union Type × Gender)		.011** (.107)
Var (residual)		.801 (.895)

Estimation method: restricted maximum likelihood. B are unstandardized regression coefficients. Significance of B estimates is based on robust standard errors. All continuous variables centered around grand mean.

p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

Table 3.

Random-Intercept-And-Slope Models on Happiness With Cross-Level Interactions

	Model 2		Model 3		Model 4		Model 5		Model 6
	B	b	B	b	B	b	B	b	B	b
Intercept	5.52*** (.04)	5.38*** (.04)	5.50*** (.05)	5.38*** (.05)	5.52*** (.04)	5.38*** (.04)	5.50*** (.04)	5.38*** (.04)	5.52*** (.04)	5.38*** (.04)
Union type (cohabitor = 1)	−.12*** (.02)	−.04*** (.01)	−.11*** (.03)	−.04*** (.01)	−.12*** (.03)	−.04*** (.01)	−.11*** (.02)	−.04*** (.01)	−.12*** (.02)	−.04*** (.01)
Gender (female = 1)	−.12*** (.02)	−.06*** (.01)	−.10*** (.02)	−.05*** (.01)	−.12*** (.02)	−.06*** (.01)	−.10*** (.02)	−.05*** (.01)	−.12*** (.02)	−.06*** (.01)
Union Type × Gender	.03 (.02)	.01 (.01)	.03 .03)	.01 (.01)	.03 (.03)	.01 (.01)	.02 (.03)	.01 (.01)	.04 (.02)	.02 (.01)
Personal gender role norm			.07*** (.01)	.07*** (.01)			.06*** (.01)	.06*** (.01)
Societal gender role norm	−.16 (.14)	−.07 (.04)					−.21 (.14)	−.09 (.05)	−.23* (.11)	−.10* (.04)
Gender equity in economic opportunity					−.14** (.04)	−.12** (.05)	—	—	−.16** (.05)	−.14** (.05)
Gender × Societal Gender Role Norm	−.05 (.06)	−.01 (.01)					−.06 (.07)	−.01 (.01)	−.03 (.06)	−.01 (.01)
Union Type × Societal Gender Role Norm	.02 (.06)	.00 (.01)					.02 (.08)	.00 (.01)	.01 (.06)	.00 (.01)
Gender × Union Type × Societal Gender Role Norm	−.20** (.06)	−.02** (.01)					−.18* (.08)	−.02* (.01)	−.18* (.07)	−.02* (.01)
Gender × Personal Gender Role Norm			−.00 (.02)	−.00 (.01)			−.01 (.02)	−.00 (.01)
Union Type× Personal Gender Role Norm			.00 (.03)	.00 (.01)			.01 (.04)	.00 (.01)
Gender × Union Type × Personal Gender Role Norm			−.03 (.03)	−.01 (.01)			−.01 (.04)	−.00 (.01)
Gender × Gender Equity in Economic Participation					.04 (.03)	.02 (.01)			.04 (.03)	.02 (.01)
Union Type× Gender Equity in Economic Participation					−.01 (.03)	−.00 (.01)			.00 (.03)	.00 (.01)
Gender × Union Type × Gender Equity in Economic Participation					.05 (.03)	.01 (.01)			.02 (.03)	.01 (.01)
Variance components
Var (intercept)	.056*** (.236)		.064*** (.252)		.050*** (.224)		.057*** (.239)		.043*** (.208)
Var (Union Type × Gender)	.006 (.077)		.010* (.099)		.009* (.093)		.006 (.078)		.006 (.075)
Var (residual)	.801 (.895)		.798 (.893)		.801 (.895)		.798 (.893)		.801 (.895)

Estimation method: restricted maximum likelihood. B are unstandardized regression coefficients. Significance of B estimates based on robust standard errors. All continuous variables are centered around grand mean. Standard errors are in brackets. All models also include controls for all effects in Table 2.

p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

In Model 1 (Table 2), the focus independent variable “union type” is included together with the first-order moderator “gender,” their interaction term, and all mentioned individual control variables. The results suggest that married individuals are generally .12 (on the scale from 1 to 7) happier than unmarried cohabitors (b = −.12, p < .001). The b coefficient of the interaction term (b = .05, ns) indicates that the happiness gap between cohabiting and married females and cohabiting and married males is on average the same size. However, the random parameter of the slope of the interaction term (var = .011, SD = .11) indicates that this is not the case in all countries: The b coefficient of the interaction term varies significantly across countries and 95% of its variations are predicted to lie between = −.15 and .25, χ²(29, N = 22,285) = 53.21, p < .01. Hence, the difference in the cohabitation gap for men and women varies across countries.

To examine whether gender differences in the happiness effect of cohabitation depend on a country’s gender role norm, we estimate the effect of the societal gender role norm on the interaction term “union type by gender” (Model 2, Table 3). When the country’s gender role norm increases by one unit, the coefficient for the interaction between union type and gender is estimated to decrease by .20 (b = −.20, p < .001). In other words, the difference in the happiness gap between cohabiting and married females and cohabiting and married males gets larger with decreases in the strength of the country’s gender role norm. The comparison of the random part of Model 1 (without cross-level interactions) and Model 2 (with the cross-level interaction involving the societal gender role norm) shows that the variance component for the interaction term goes down from .011 (SD = .11), χ²(29, N = 22,285) = 53.21, p < .01, to .006 (SD = .08), χ²(28, N = 22,285) = 39.26, ns. This suggests that using the country’s gender role norm, we can explain about 45% of the between-country differences in the interaction term of gender and union type. This three-way interaction is plotted in Figure 2, in which the relationship between union type and gender is shown for a country with more liberal (the 25th percentile) and more traditional gender role norms (the 75th percentile). As Figure 2 indicates, with a decrease in social expectations to stick to traditional gender roles, the cohabitation gap for women but not for men is likely to vanish. For example, in Scandinavian and Western European countries where the role of wife and mother is less central to the female gender role, official marriage does not bring any increase in women’s happiness in comparison to cohabitation. However, it does make women happier in countries with more traditional gender role beliefs like Eastern Europe and Latin America.

Figure 2.

Predicted Happiness Values by Union Type and Gender for Countries With Traditional and Liberal Societal Gender Role Norms (Based on Model 2, Table 3)

To test the hypotheses pertaining to the effect of the personal gender role norm and the country’s gender equity in economic opportunities, we estimated the respective three-way interactions in Models 3 and 4. In contrast to our expectations, neither personal gender role norm (Model 3) nor a country’s gender equity in economic opportunities (Model 4) account for the gender differences in the happiness effect of cohabitation (b = −.03, ns, and b = .05, ns, respectively). Hence, the country differences in the cohabitation gap for men and women depend only on a country’s societal gender role norm.

Finally, to see whether the effect of the societal gender norm is independent from the personal gender norm, we estimated the respective three-way interactions in Model 5. The effect of the interaction with the societal gender norm did not change much (b = −.18, p < .05 in comparison to b = −.20, p < .01 in Model 2), which indicates that in countries with more liberal gender role norms, cohabiting women are as happy as married women independently from their personal gender norms. Similarly, to examine whether the effect of the societal gender norm might be attributed to a country’s equity in economic opportunities, we controlled for the latter in Model 6. The interaction effect with the societal gender norm was not much affected by these manipulations (b = −.21, p < .01 in comparison to b = −.20, p < .01 in Model 2). Hence, the happiness of cohabiting women depends on their country’s gender norms rather than its level of female economic empowerment.

Discussion

This research was conducted to examine the effect of unmarried cohabitation on men’s and women’s happiness in countries with different gender role norms and thus to highlight the role of normative conformity in the subjective perception of happiness. The findings support our speculation that the inconsistency of an individual’s marital status with socially defined gender role standards negatively affects an individual’s subjective evaluation of happiness.

Our results indicate that the country’s egalitarian/liberal gender role norm alleviates the negative effect of cohabitation on women’s happiness. Does it have a comparable effect for men as well? Our answer is no: A country’s gender role norm determines the happiness of cohabiting women but not men. We explain this effect in terms of conformity. In countries with more traditional gender role norms, the degree of stereotyping according to gender roles is high: Women are expected to “invest” in marriage and family while men are expected to “invest” in their job and career. In line with this expectation, our results show that men’s traditional role as bread-winner is not undermined by their marital status, regardless of whether they live in more traditional societies. In addition, gender literature suggests that men are universally less interdependent and less relationship-oriented than women (e.g., Cross & Madson, 1997). Hence, the independence of the happiness effect of men’s marital status in a cultural context can be considered as further support for this literature.

This is quite different for women. As informal cohabitation cannot be equated with marriage (which women in traditional societies are supposed to pursue), cohabiting women are likely to be considered as not conforming to their gender role standards. Like other norm transgressors (those who jump the queue or do not give a seat to the elderly on public transport, for example), they can be exposed to social informal sanctions such as social disapproval or rejection. For instance, signs of social disapproval may translate in disapprobatory glances of hotel reception staff or a landlord who accidentally comes to know one’s family situation. In addition, traditional gender norms imply that women are supposed to value marriage. So we can speculate that in such societies, people tend to believe that a woman lives together with her partner out of wedlock not because she doesn’t want to marry him but because he doesn’t want to marry her. The society’s doubts in the commitment of her partner makes a cohabiting woman pitied and looked down upon, which could be detrimental for her self-esteem and psychological well-being regardless of her own perception of her partner’s commitment.

Independently from external social pressure, a woman can feel internal pressure to get married, as formal marriage is part of her own expectations or beliefs about what a woman should achieve to have a “fulfilled” life. In this article, we refer to such beliefs as personal gender role norms. Interestingly, we found no effect of the cohabiting women’s personal gender norm on their happiness. Cohabiting women are on average slightly less happy than their married counterparts regardless of how strong their personal gender role norm is. This finding obviously contradicts the results of the existing research in gender conformity, which particularly highlights the role of internalized gender norms in self-evaluations and emotions.

We attribute this discrepancy to the differences in what gender-inconsistent behavior represents in the experimental research in gender conformity and in the present study. In the existing gender conformity literature, gender-inconsistent behavior is not considered an act of free will: Situations of nonconformity are usually manipulated by asking the participants to imagine performing a gender-inconsistent behavior or by exposing them to slides and videos presenting such behaviors. Obviously, in such situations, the participants cannot refuse to do so because the experimenter’s request is against their normative beliefs about their gender. In contrast, starting an informal cohabitation is an act of free will: Women who believe that living together unwed is inconsistent with their gender role are not likely to move together with their partners before marriage. Conversely, women holding more liberal gender role beliefs are more likely to cohabitate even when this choice might be disapproved by other members of society. Yet it is exactly this social disapproval that might negatively affect their psychological well-being later on.

In more conservative countries, cohabitating women may suffer not only from social disapproval but also from several law-related disadvantages of their status, such as no possibility for joint adoption, no eligibility for lower income tax, and no possibility of using a partner’s public health insurance (Waaldijk, 2005).

According to our alternative hypothesis, greater economic participation of women gives them more independence from the institution of marriage and brings the happiness level of cohabiting women up to the level of their married counterparts. Yet we cannot provide empirical support for this specific hypothesis. Perhaps in countries where women’s position on the economic arena is weak, their independence from marriage is ensured through other channels—for example, a strong welfare state that provides single mothers with children allowances, maternity leave benefits, and free childcare facilities. Alternatively, another “institution” that can foster women’s financial independence from marriage is the woman’s family—her parents and relatives. Confidence that the family will support a woman in case of emergency (e.g., if a cohabiting partner leaves her without assistance in case of pregnancy) may potentially decrease her financial dependence on marriage. Thus, the tradition of strong family affiliation as well as welfare state support may compensate for a country’s lower female economic empowerment and explain why it had no effect on the happiness level of cohabiting women in our study.

Limitations of the Present Research

One of the limitations of our approach is that we could not rule out the possibility that cohabitating status is not a norm violation in itself but rather a norm violation of other characteristics that cohabitors usually have in common. For example, cohabiting women are less likely to have children and more likely to place work and career among their top life priorities. These aspects, rather than cohabitation, may be the real targets of social disapproval and the causes of lower happiness. On the other hand, this argument does not undermine the main contribution of our results: the demonstration of the effect of violation of social gender norms on one’s subjective perception of happiness. Whether the violation consisted in informal cohabitation, childlessness, achievement orientation, or all this together is circumstantial.

Despite the strong support that our analysis provides for the social norm hypothesis, there may be other mechanisms explaining our results. For example, women who decide to cohabit in a traditional society may differ from women who make this decision in a more liberal culture. In this study, we could rule out the possibility of these selection effects based on sociodemographic factors. However, women who decide to cohabit in traditional countries can have different psychological characteristics that could account for their lower happiness scores. For example, they may score high on openness to experience, have lower levels of risk aversion, or have a particularly stable self-concept (since they had the courage to “go against the crowd”). Looking at the relationship between these personality characteristics and the happiness level of cohabitors and married individuals cross-nationally would be an interesting topic for future studies.

Finally, the individual perception of stressors was shown to be more important than the actual existence of stressors in affecting how people react to life events (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). Hence, an individual perception of how strong other members of society approve or disapprove of women and men taking on nontraditional gender roles may have a stronger effect than the actual societal norms. Future research is encouraged to address these issues.

In general, our results demonstrated that the effect of gender conformity on psychological well-being can be observed in such an intimate life domain as marital status. Apparently, in cultures where being married is central to women’s gender role, marriage brings women more happiness than cohabitation does; in contrast, it does not have any added value for women living in cultures with more liberal gender role norms.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

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