Survey- Cohabiting Effect on Relationship Quality

The rate at which cohabitation is taking place in the current generation has caused several scholars to investigate the impact that this change has brought on children as well as couples. According to Rhoades, Stanley, and Markman (2019), most young adults feel that cohabitation is a way of testing their relationships before they get married. Most couples have varying reasons for cohabiting, and these can range from convenience to financial reasons. This topic is of great interest to me. In particular, I am interested in finding out the impact cohabitation has on the quality of relationships. Survey is considered the most commonly used sociological research (Hammond, Cheney & Pearsey, 2020); and will therefore be used in this study.

A total of ten survey questions were generated and presented to ten respondents. Creating the questions was quite difficult as I considered this the most important part of my research since this would impact the rest of the research. It was important for me to measure the experiences and opinions of the respondents accurately. According to the Pew Research Center (2022), if the gathered information is founded on a shaky foundation full of biased or ambiguous questions, there would be no accurate random sampling. As a result, I was keen to ensure that the questions were as specific as possible so as to obtain clear responses. I also used a mixture of open and close-ended questions on certain questions. The wording of the questions is also considered highly important, and therefore, I made use of simple language to ensure that respondents would be able to understand the questions. The order of the questions is also considered important (Pew Research Center, 2022). I decided to ask more personal questions at the end in order to minimize the risk of respondents failing to answer the questions due to a lack of trust.

Survey Questions

Once I formulated the survey questions, I distributed them online to ten people. All ten respondents gave their responses, and I compiled these responses in terms of themes to help the collection easier. The survey questions were as follows:

Are you legally married? Yes☐No☐
Are you cohabiting with your partner? Yes ☐ No☐
Do you have any children with your partner? Yes☐No☐
If you are cohabiting with your partner, would you wish to get married someday? Yes☐No☐Not sure☐
If you are cohabiting, what are your reasons for cohabiting?
Love
Financial convenience
Easy parenting
All of the above
Other (If other, state the reasons).
If you are married, what are your reasons for getting married?
a) Love
b) Financial convenience
c) Easy parenting
d) All of the above
e) Other (If other, state the reasons).
How can you rate your marital satisfaction?
0-Extremely dissatisfied
1-Dissatisfied
2-Neither dissatisfied nor satisfied
3-Satisfied
4-Extremely satisfied
On a scale of 1-10, how often do you communicate with your partner? (0-Not often) (10-Very often)

How committed are you to your relationship? (0-Highly uncommitted) (10-Highly committed)

How do you deal with conflicts in your relationship? ———————–

Data Collection and Feedback Analysis

All of the respondents gave their feedback with clearly outlined responses. Out of the ten, six were cohabiting, and only four were legally married. I separated the responses given by the married individuals from those who were cohabiting to make clear comparisons. All the respondents had children in their relationships. Out of the six cohabiting respondents, half of them claimed to desire to get married one day. Two of them claimed to have no desire to get married, and only one claimed to be unsure. Out of the four married individuals, one of them claimed to be married for financial convenience, two claimed to be married for love, and the other respondent claimed that easy parenting, love, and financial convenience were all reasons for getting married.

On the other hand, 50 percent of the cohabiting respondents claimed financial convenience as the reasons for getting married whereas the other 50 percent claimed easy parenting, love, and financial convenience as all reasons for cohabiting. None of the respondents gave an answer outside of the choices provided. Three of the married respondents claimed to be satisfied with the quality of their relationships, whereas the other one claimed to be neither satisfied nor dissatisfied. Out of the six cohabiting respondents, four claimed to be satisfied, whereas one claimed to be neither satisfied nor dissatisfied. The other claimed to be dissatisfied with the relationship. All of the married respondents gave responses that ranged between five and ten when asked how often they communicate with their partners.

On the other hand, 50 percent of the cohabiting respondents rated between five and ten, whereas the other half rated between zero and five. All the married respondents also had a response between five and ten when asked how committed they were to their relationships. On the contrary, four of the cohabiting respondents rated five, whereas two rated below five. The last question was organized into four themes: communication, silence, fighting, and avoidance. Accordingly, 50 percent of the married respondents claimed to communicate with their partners, whereas the other half wrote a silent treatment. Three of the cohabiting respondents claimed to communicate, two percent claimed to avoid, and the other claimed to fight.

References

Hammond, R., Cheney, P., & Pearsey, R. (2020). Introduction to sociology.

Pew Research Center. (2022). Writing Survey Questions. https://www.pewresearch.org/our-methods/u-s-surveys/writing-survey-questions/

Rhoades, G. K., Stanley, S. M., & Markman, H. J. (2019). Couples’ reasons for cohabitation: Associations with individual well-being and relationship quality. Journal of Family Issues, 30(2), 233-258.

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Question

Conduct a survey:
Choose a topic related to marriage and family. Develop 10 survey questions to measure your topic. Ask 10 people the survey questions you developed and collect the data.