The Effect of Cohabitation and Marriage on Crime Cessation

• In Event: 21010 - Social Context, Family, and Crime

Abstract

Life-course criminological scholarship argues that marriage operates as a key turning point in the desistance process. Despite empirical support, established methods for causally analyzing the impact of marriage on crime are susceptible to selection and timing of desistance. Moreover, far less attention has been given to the effect of cohabitation on crime, a notable oversight given the substantial decline in marriage rates and increasing prevalence of cohabitation. I evaluate the causal effect of cohabitation and marriage on criminal activity using novel staggered difference-in-differences estimation and data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 Cohort. I find that both cohabitation and marriage facilitate desistance among young adults. While cohabitation’s impact on crime reduction is observed for both men and women, the marriage effect is concentrated among men.

Author

• Avery Warner, University of Wisconsin-Madison