Previous research has indicated that premarital cohabitation decreases marital stability. This study examined the role of premarital cohabitation as a determinant of cohabitation after marital disruption. The author proposed that people who cohabited with their first spouse prior to marriage have a greater propensity to cohabit after marital disruption than people who did not cohabit before their first marriage. Event history analysis of the postmarital union experiences of women and men from the Canadian 1990 Family and Friends Survey (FFS) supports this proposition. It was found that the hazard rate of postmarital cohabitation was over 50% higher for premarital cohabitants than for noncohabitants. This was the case for both women and men. The implications of these results are discussed.
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