Is the French PACS Similar to Cohabitation Or Marriage? Recently Merged Census and Tax Data on Partnership Situations and Transitions

Is the French PACS similar to cohabitation or marriage? Recently merged census and tax data on partnership situations and transitions Giulia Ferrari and Laurent Toulemon1 Paper presented at PAA 2018, session 156 Family Complexity and Diversity Outside the United States Friday, April 27, 2018 Introduction In France, woe’ ad e’s ouple ofiguatios hae osistetly haged oe the last foty years: marriage rates have dramatically declined and Pacs (i.e., French civil partnerships) have become increasingly common as a new form of legal union (Mazuy et al. 2014). At the same time, there is high uncertainty on the future evolution of marriage and Pacs in France: in 2015, 235,000 marriages and 192,000 Pacs were celebrated, with a very high total of , legalized uios (INSEE 2017). There are currently few Pacs transformed into marriages. Marriages and Pacs are both occurring at older ages, while age at first cohabiting union is stable (Costemalle 2015). Unmarried (and unpacsed) unions are thus becoming more frequent, especially at young ages, but the long-term trend in couple situations remains uncertain. Previous research has investigated different couple situations, either based upon administrative data (thus missing unmarried cohabitations) or survey data (thus suffering of attrition and memory bias). However, to our knowledge there is not yet any study looking at the transition probabilities and the evolution of different couple situations in France, including cohabiting unions and Pacs. Moreover, none has yet studied how these phenomena vary across socio-economic strata, although theoretical considerations (Oppenheimer 1977) suggest that the diffusion of positive norms and attitudes towards unconventional forms of union and individualism may occur at different paces. In this paper, we start by looking at the current age and sex distribution of different types of partnerships and their future evolutions based on the transition probabilities observed between 2010 and 2015. We verify that although marriages are declining and occurring at older ages, they have been almost completely replaced by unmarried and unregistered cohabitations at young (and old) ages on the one hand, and Pacs on the other. Then we observe the characteristics of these alteatie uio types: ohaitatio’s foatios ad dissolutios ith espet to foal partnerships, marriage probabilities according to couple situation and Pacs as a prelude or rather as an alternative to marriage. Further, our analysis by gender, age and educational attainment sheds more light on the current and future changes that will occur in the way people form and dissolve partnerships in France. Recent trends in partnership formation and dissolution in France and other European countries In recent years we have observed consistent changes in couple configurations of men and women in France, with a dramatic decline in marriage rates and a recent increase in Pacs2 as a new form of 1 Institut national d'études démographiques (INED), 133, Bd DAVOUT, 75 980 PARIS Cedex 20 France. giulia.ferrari@ined.fr; toulemon@ined.fr 2 The Act of 15 November 1999 of the French Civil Code, amended several times since, provides unmarried couples the opportunity to organize their life together, with some social and tax advantages to boot. A Civil Partnership or Pacs (Pacte civil de solidarité) may be established by a private or notarial instrument. It is egisteed at the distit out of the pates’ joit plae of esidee. All the foalities as egads 1 legal union (Mazuy et al. 2014). With respect to marriage, Pacs is simpler to start and to end, is less protective in terms of inheritance and reversion pension, but is also increasingly similar to marriage in terms of potential fiscal benefits3 and officiality4. At the same time, there is high uncertainty on the future evolution of marriage and Pacs in France: in 2015, 235,000 marriages and 192,000 Pacs were celebrated, with a very high total of 427,00 legalized uios INSEE ). As Pacs has become popular only recently, very few Pacs are transformed into marriage (around 3,000 per year) but the current couple behaviors carry the potential for major changes. Although marriages and Pacs are both occurring at older ages (with an increase in mean age at first marriage for men and women of respectively 2.4 and 2.9 years between 2000 and 2015 (INSEE 2017)), age at first cohabiting union is stable (Rault & Régnier-Lolier 2015, Costemalle 2015). Unmarried (and unpacsed) unions are thus becoming more frequent, especially at young ages, but not only, many second unions being entered without a marriage or a Pacs (Costemalle 2015). Union dissolutions are generally more likely for cohabitants than for married couples (between 1.5 and 4 times higher according to the country) and this holds true even if children are present (Andersson et al. 2017). However, this trend may be affected by the contextual acceptance and diffusion of such a form of union and it has been proved that the dissolution risk of cohabitors, relative to married couples, is higher where premarital cohabitation represents either a small or a large proportion of partnerships (Liefbroer & Doulejin 2006). Since 1972 the number of marriages in France has declined. After stabilization between 1985 and 2000, they declined again, while Pacs spread as an alternative form of legal recognition of unions for different-sex couples (Rault 2009). Total first marriage rates have halved over the subsequent 40 years: between 1972 and 2012, they fell from 91.7% to 46.6% first marriages for 100 men and from 94.8% to 47.4% first marriages for 100 women. Pacs were introduced on 15 November 1999; A pacs may be chosen for at least three reasons: as an alternative to marriage, as a trial to marriage or, at least before 2013, as the only possible formal union for same-sex couples (Rault 2009). Pacs became rapidly quite diffused, not only among same- sex couples but also to different-sex couples: from 17,000 in 2000 to 180,000 in 2015 among different-sex couples. The number of Pacs is still increasing. In 2015 about 180,000 Pacs were registered, to be compared to 223,000 marriages representing more than 40% of officialized unions (marriages plus Pacs). After a peak of 150,000 in 2005, the number of divorces is back to 120,000, its value in 1995. However, probabilities of divorce by marriage duration have increased with successive cohorts: between the 1970 and 2000 cohorts they doubled for marriage durations of 10 years. Pacs dissolutions increased over the period 2010-2013, however we need to bear in mind that almost 40% of them are transformed into marriages. The analysis of same-sex couples implies a precise checking of the data, as a limited number of errors on the sex of one or another partner may lead to large relative errors on same-sex couples (Regnier-Loilier 2017). Same-sex Pacs have always been a small minority of Pacs: around 5,000 in 2000 and always less than 10,000 per year since (Insee 2017). In 2013 a new law authorized same-sex establishing the Pacs are centralized on a single register held at the registry of the court that recorded the initial instrument. 3 As of 2005, all Pacs couples are required to file joint tax returns, in the same manner as married couples. Due to the way that the progressive tax is applied in France, a couple filing joint income tax, in almost all cases, pays less tax than they would filing separately if one of the partners earns substantially more than the other. But partners do not inherit, nor can they receive reversion pension, in case of death, contrarily to married couples. 4 This has recently changed: from 1 November 2017, registration of the Pacs takes place in the town hall (and no longer in the court of first instance). The bill to modernize the justice of the XXI century has provided for the transfer to the registrar powers vested in the Registrar for Pacs by private deed. The possibility of signing Pacs with an attorney is maintained. 2 marriages. In that year, 7,000 same-sex marriages and 6,000 same-sex Pacs were contracted. For these reasons this study will not distinguish between same-sex and different-sex couples. Socioeconomic differences in partnership formation and dissolution Women have achieved increasingly higher levels of education in all high- and middle-income countries and the gender gap in education has reversed. In almost all countries with more than 20% of the population with tertiary education, women have an educational advantage over men (Esteve et al. 2016). This trend has profoundly affected family dynamics and outcomes, especially the way in which people form and dissolve unions. The reversal of education gap has translated into 1) the end of hypergamy (husbands having more education than wives) and the increase of hypogamy (wives having more education than husbands), particularly in countries where women in general are more educated than men; 2) the same trend with pates’ income; 3) the positive association between ies’ eduatio ioe ad dioe is o loge sigifiat (Lyngstad & Jalovaara 2010). Nonetheless, to our knowledge no research has investigated how different partnership types are formed and dissolved at different life course stages by individual educational attainment. Indeed, socioeconomic differences deriving form education may translate in different transitions and evolutions over time of the various ways of entering and exiting a couple, that is through unmarried and unregistered cohabitations, registered and unmarried partnerships (Pacs) and marriages. Assumptions and research questions Based on previous literature and on the trends observed in France over the last 40 years, we expect: 1.a. a further decrease in the prevalence of married couples; 2.a.

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