The Transition from Living Apart Together to a Co-Residential Partnership: Who Moves in with Whom?

Michael Wagner, University of Cologne
Clara H. Mulder, University of Groningen

We study the transition to co-residential partnerships among those who can be considered to be truly at risk of that transition: those in a LAT relationship. We use data from the four waves of the German Pairfam dataset (N = 2,139 younger people in LAT relationships in wave 1). We present logistic regressions of forming a co-residential partnership, forming such a partnership by having the partner move in and the intention to form such a partnership. We test various hypotheses, among which hypotheses pertaining to relationship quality, the extent to which the partner relationship is institutionalized, resources and differences in resources between partners. The quality and the degree of institutionalization of the relationship seem to be the most important predictors of the transition into a co-residential partnership. We also find that older LAT partners, and those who are employed, are more likely than others to form co-residential partnerships.