CHANGES IN COHABITATION ACROSS COHORTS - THE INFLUENCE OF POLITICAL ACTIVISM

This article investigates increasing rates of nonmarital cohabitation in the U.S., primarily examining the link between left-oriented activi sm and cohabitation. The article relies on Cohort-based models of soci al change in concert with a theory linking New Left social movements o f the 1960s and 1970s to the diffusion of new life-course patterns. Fu rther, it addresses the question of diffusion across sociodemographic dimensions as cohabitation rates increase. Analyzing retrospective lif ecourse data on three cohorts born between 1943 and 1964, I find that later cohorts are much more likely to have cohabited than are earlier cohorts, that left-oriented political activism is a strong predictor o f cohabitation for all cohorts, and that there has been some demograph ic diffusion of cohabitation along the education dimension.