Study Reveals Cohabitation Among University Students Is On The Rise

Cohabitation among university students is on the rise, according to a study by the University of Cape Coast (UCC). The study found that cohabitation in private hostels is high.

Living together is to live respectively and have a sexual relationship without being hitched.

The circumstance is credited to the outrageous opportunity in the private hostels appreciated by the students, in contrast to the traditional university halls, where some control systems have been organized.

At times, these students engaged with this set up their resources to lease the space for economic reasons. While the majority of students thought cohabitation was bad, a few perceived it as good, fun and normal.

The study, which was additionally directed in some abutting communities, observed that the situation was contributing exceptionally to adolescent pregnancy and child marriage.

At a workshop for some traditional council registrars from eight regional houses of chiefs and the National House of Chiefs on ending child marriage and gender-based violence, Professor Georgina Yaa Oduro, Head of the Sociology and Anthropology Department at UCC, presented the findings.

The training, organized by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the Ministry of Chieftaincy and Religious Affairs, sought to deepen the understanding of the registrars on child marriage, gender-based violence and other harmful practices to help them function effectively.

“If you are on campus and in the halls, you have the hall masters, tutors, and the hall council to control you. In the girls’ hostels, for example, guys cannot visit the halls after 10:00 PM,” Prof Oduro said.

“But in the private hostels, comparatively, you have the freedom to do whatever you want.”

According to Prof. Oduro, the partners played every part of a married couple, including sex and domestic duties like cooking, washing, and giving money to each other.

Some of the students, particularly the young women who had to juggle academic work and domestic chores for their partners, sometimes missed lectures or attended late, affecting their studies, she noted.

Like in the communities, she observed that cohabitation among students was also characterized by gender-based violence such as forced sex, abortions and quarrels often due to the freedom in such relationships.

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She described how a 22-year-old male student of UCC died by suicide this year following a disagreement with his partner he was living together with.

A large number of those relationships sadly ends after school, she noted.

The professor noted that very little attention had been given to the issue and called for concerted efforts by stakeholders, including parents, lecturers, school authorities, and traditional and religious leaders, to mitigate it.

Prof. Oduro was concerned about young girls abusing emergency contraceptives and advised against this.

“It is my understanding that such pills are supposed to be taken once in six months or so. But for some children today, it’s their everyday pill,” she stated with concern.

Credit: Ghana News Agency