People who live apart together (LATs): new family form or just a stage?

Abstract

‘Living apart together’ – that is being in an intimate relationship with a partner who lives somewhere else (LAT) – is increasingly recognised and accepted as a specific way of being in a couple. On the face of it, this is a far cry from the ‘traditional’ version of couple relationships, where co-residence in marriage was placed at the centre and where living apart from one's partner would be regarded as abnormal, and understandable only as a reaction to severe external constraints. Some commentators regard living apart together as a historically new family form where partners can pursue a ‘both/and’ solution to partnership – they can experience both couple intimacy, but at the same time maintain personal autonomy and pre-existing commitments. Alternatively, others see LAT as just a ‘stage’ on the way to cohabitation and marriage, where LATs are not radical pioneers moving beyond the family, but are cautious and conservative, and simply show a lack of commitment. Behind these rival interpretations lies the increasingly tarnished spectre of individualisation theory. Is LAT some sort of index for a developing individualisation in practice? We take this debate further by using information from the 2006 British Social Attitudes Survey and from in-depth interviews with LAT partners. We find that LATs do resemble cohabitating (unmarried) couples in demographic and social terms, but also display quite diverse origins and motivations. One group of LATs do not see themselves as couple partners at all, but more as special boy/girlfriends. Others live apart mainly in response to external circumstances. But some LATs do seem to be developing a new way of living in their relationships, as a means of balancing both couple intimacy and personal autonomy over the longer term.

Keywords:

• living apart together
• family
• intimacy
• couples
• individualisation

Notes

1. Much of the material for this paper is adapted from our earlier paper ‘People who live apart together (LATs) – how different are they?’ Sociological Review, 58 (1), 112–134, 2010.

2. Referred to as ‘non-cohabiting regular relationship’. See Natsal Table 7.1.

3. The 1949 Mass Observation (MO) report into sexual attitudes and behaviour in Britain, colloquially known as ‘Little Kinsey’ (although it considers family, friends and relationships as well as sexual behaviour) remained unpublished at the time. The typewritten chapter drafts were subsequently published, for the first time, in Liz Stanley's Sex Surveyed (1995). Original drafts, with supplementary and supporting material, are held in the MO archive at the University of Sussex.

4. The 2006 British Social Attitudes Survey was carried out by the National Centre for Social Research (Park et al. 2008). The sample comprised adults aged 18 and over in Britain, calibrated to match the population by region, age and sex. The survey was carried out through face-to-face interviews, supplemented by self-completion questionnaires for particular topics. The ‘new family’ module questions used here was asked of 3197 respondents (2775 for questions included in the self-completion questionnaire).

5. In BSAS 2006 12% of the adult population reported attending religious services at least once a week, similar to the 10.1% found by Tearfund's larger 2007 survey. Actual attendance appears to be lower, with the English Church Census finding 6.1% attending churches in England over census weekend in 2005. See Ashworth et al. 2007.

6. This index was a composite score derived from scores for the following questions. 1. There is little difference socially between being married and living together. 2. A wedding is more about a celebration than life long commitment. 3. Living with a partner shows just as much commitment as getting married. 4. Married couples make better parents than unmarried ones.

7. Results were similar using different codings for relationship status (e.g. combining or separating different types of LATs, or comparing LATs with all relationship types or just married respondents).