Common law marriage and couple formation

Table 1 Sample means

	Women		Men
	CLM 21.6%		CLM 21.4%
	Non-CLM	CLM	Non-CLM	CLM
Individual characteristics
Married	0.380	0.427	0.317	0.362
Cohabiting	0.087	0.073	0.080	0.069
Age	26.4	26.5	26.4	26.5
No high school diploma	0.115	0.128	0.138	0.151
Some college	0.366	0.358	0.329	0.326
College degree	0.183	0.175	0.158	0.151
Graduate degree	0.052	0.041	0.040	0.038
Black	0.159	0.151	0.137	0.131
Hispanic	0.082	0.132	0.085	0.133
Asian	0.019	0.007	0.020	0.008
Other race	0.013	0.013	0.013	0.012
Presence of children <6	0.288	0.315	0.182	0.211
Children 6-17	0.149	0.167	0.069	0.080
Number of children	0.833	0.935	0.464	0.556
Metro: central city	0.267	0.266	0.259	0.260
Metro: outside central	0.557	0.525	0.565	0.525
Unearned income	53,331	49,324	49,601	43,524
State characteristics
Sex ratio	0.997	0.994	0.998	0.995
College educated adults	25.7	24.5	25.8	24.6
Unemployment rate	5.9	5.4	6.0	5.4
Median household income	51,957	49,083	52,046	49,216
Welfare	707	611	710	614
N	243,926	78,063	222,034	70,427

CPS 1995-2011. US born women and men, ages 18-35.
Notes. All differences are statistically significant. Means are weighted using survey weights.
Median household income is in Table H-8 at http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/data/historical/household/. Unemployment rates are annual averages by state and are obtained from BLS (http://www.bls.gov/data/).
Sex ratios are calculated from Census state population estimates by dividing the number of men in each 5-year age group by the number of women who are 2 years younger. For example, in order to get a sex ratio for women aged 18-22, we divide the number of men aged 20-24 by the number of women aged 18-22. Sex ratios are calculated separately for white and black population and for the total population. Other races as assigned sex ratios for total population. Population data by age are obtained from http://www.census.gov/popest/data/intercensal/state/state2010.html and https://www.census.gov/popest/data/state/asrh/2012/SC-EST2012-ALLDATA6.html.
Welfare benefits are maximum TANF + SNAP benefits for a family of two, in 2010 dollars, and are obtained from the University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research http://www.ukcpr.org/data.