Study Finds Cohabiting Doesn’t Make a Union Last

New York Times article "Study Finds Cohabiting Doesn’t Make a Union Last" (March 2nd, 2010) suggests that living together causes an increased probability of divorce. This deceptive suggestion comes from a mislabeling of correlation for causation.

Just because some academic studies have shown that living together may increase the chance of divorce somewhat, young adults themselves don’t believe that.

quotes the article. Lighters do not cause lung cancer despite the fact that we observe more lighters in the pockets of those who die from lung cancer. Largely, the poorer and the less religious are more likely to live together. Perhaps these factors, not cohabitation, are driving higher divorce rates among co-habiting couples. No one should be advised to avoid cohabitation on the basis of this study alone; it lacks any exogenous variation in cohabitation and so cannot claim causation.