Repartnering in Australia and the UK: the impact of children and relationship histories

Alexandra J. Skew, University of Essex
Ann Evans, Australian National University
Edith E. Gray, Australian National University

Repartnering has become increasingly important in recent years as a result of a rise in divorce rates coupled with an increase in rates of cohabitation, a union type which research has demonstrated to be more unstable than marriage. Although a large body of literature exists on the study of remarriage, there is far less research which has investigated repartnering in the form of a cohabiting union. Further, much of this work focuses on those who have been previously married, with far less attention paid to repartnering after the breakdown of a cohabiting relationship (Wu and Schimmele, 2005). This paper seeks to address the issue of repartnering in a comparative perspective. We explore the impact of children and relationship histories on the repartnering patterns of men and women. The paper uses a longitudinal approach to compare Australia and the UK, countries with similar policy and legislative frameworks.