The effect of life histories on repartnering in Australia and the United Kingdom

In recent years as a result of a rise in divorce rates coupled with an increased prevalence of cohabitation, a growing percentage of the population has or will experience the breakdown of a relationship and also the possibility of forming another new relationship. It has therefore become increasingly important to understand how people repartner after the dissolution of a previous union. Although a large body of literature already 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, and less is known about patterns of repartnering after the breakdown of a cohabiting relationship (Wu and Schimmele, 2005). This paper seeks to address the issue of repartnering, both in terms of forming cohabiting and marital unions, from a comparative perspective. Using a longitudinal approach we compare the nature of repartnering behaviour in Australia and the United Kingdom, countries with similar policy and legislative frameworks. We find that within five years of becoming single, an estimated 49 per cent of the United Kingdom sample and 43 per cent of the Australian sample had entered a new relationship, most commonly cohabitation. Multivariate analysis reveals important similarities as well as differences in the demographic and socio-demographic determinants of forming a new union in the two countries.