Changing Residential Cohabitation Patterns Among Mexican Young before and at the Beginning of Their Marital and Reproductive Life

In Mexico there is a long tradition for young people to live at home with their parents until marriage and leave the parental home after it, whether to form their own home or, to a much lesser extent, to incorporate to their partner’s parental home, this last especially in the case of women. However, several recent studies suggest that such pattern has been changing over recent decades as a consequence of the deep cultural, social and material transformations the country has experienced.

The aim of this paper is to analyze and compare the patterns and dynamics of residential cohabitation of three cohorts of young people around of time they start their marital and/or reproductive life. The central questions are: Have these patterns and dynamics changed in recent decades? If so, in what sense?. Other topics of interest are: to what extent young married (or in consensual union) have residential independence? How much remain in the parental home or in-laws or other relatives? How many cohabit with their conjugal partner? With their children? How much do they return to the parental home after an early marriage/union dissolution?

To answer these and other questions we analyze life history data of a nationally representative sample of three cohorts of men and women born in 1936-1938, 1951-1953 and 1966-1968. The longitudinal and retrospective data come from the Mexican Retrospective Demographic Survey carried out in 2011.

The analysis will be conducted from the perspective of the life course and cohort analysis, with a focus on young people up to thirty years of age.