World Notes SWEDEN

Caution: premarital cohabitation may be hazardous to your marriage. At least, that's what seemed to be the conclusion of a study of 4,996 Swedish women ages 20 to 44, conducted for the National Bureau of Economic Research, a Cambridge, Mass., think tank. The report found that couples who had lived together and then wedded were 80% as likely to separate or divorce as those who had lived apart.

What may skew the poll's results is the fact that two-thirds of all Swedish couples have lived together before marriage; among the young, the level is almost 90%. (Although there are no reliable figures, the U.S. percentage is believed to be considerably lower.) Thus Swedes who do not share the same roof before tying the knot are more conservative than the rest of the society and may be more dedicated to preserving even a shaky marriage. Says Swedish % Demographer Erland Hofsten: "It would be dangerous to use a study like this in an ongoing debate in the U.S. about young American couples."