Conjugal relationships and trajectories

This project studies intimate partner relationships—couplehood—and how they have evolved recently in France using the vast corpus of surveys conducted by INED since 1959 together with other quantitative and qualitative sources.
Concerning couple formation, age upon first cohabitation rose starting in the 1960s but seems to have dipped again in the most recent cohorts. With the increase in separations, repartnering—at all ages—occurs more frequently, and individual intimate relationship trajectories have become more complex. Unions have also become more diverse, now ranging from simple cohabitation to official civil union to marriage, including between people of the same sex. And previously invisible situations such as non-cohabiting intimate relationships, are now being given more attention. Lastly, the project investigates practices within couples, ranging from different ways of “being a couple” to intimate partner violence.