Co-Parenting in Cohabiting and Married Couples

Bryndl Hohmann-Marriott, Pennsylvania State University

As increasing numbers of children are born to unmarried parents, it is critical to understand how those parents work together to raise the children. Coparenting, defined as couples’ parenting-related interactions and interrelationship, characterizes the nexus of the father-mother relationship and the parent-child relationships. However, this process has rarely been examined in unmarried cohabiting parents. In this study, I use the ECLS-B to investigate coparenting in coresident families with new children, comparing married and unmarried parents. The objective is to describe the form and types of coparenting observable in unmarried-parent families, and to identify key relational and individual contexts.