This is the fourth in a series of four articles examining four critical family formation trends: marriage, children living with married parents, divorce, and cohabitation. This report gives the overview of unmarried cohabitation and risk from various academic and government sources.
Living together before marriage is the fastest growing family form in the United States. It is also documented to be a substantial driver in later divorce, for those who eventually marry, as we shall see.
The University of Virginia’s National Marriage Project explains that from 1970 to 2021, cohabitation increased more than ten-fold. They chart the decades growth as:
1970 >1% of all family households cohabiting
2005 6% of all family households cohabiting
2021 11.8% of all family households cohabiting
The U.S. trendline for cohabitational growth looks like this.
Remarkably, 76% percent of marriages entered today are preceded by pre-marital cohabitation according to the National Center for Family & Marriage Research (NCFMR) at Bowling Green State University. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, it was only 11%.
What is more, scholars at Cornell University find that “the majority of all nonmarital births (roughly 60%) occur within cohabiting unions.” They explain, “Yet, over time, fewer cohabiting unions are transitioning in marriages.”
Sadly, Pew Research Center reported that “the share of adults ages 18 to 44 who have ever lived with an unmarried partner (59%) has surpassed the share who has ever been married (50%).”
Pew adds, “This represents a significant change from roughly a decade ago, when 54% of adults in this age group had ever cohabited and 60% had ever married, according to data from the national Survey of Family Growth (NSFG).”
Growing False Belief that Cohabitation Improves Marriage
Pew also finds that many people (48%) wholly believe living together leads to be more successful marriages. A stronger majority (63%) of young adults think this is true.
Adults who lived with their spouse prior to marriage are far more likely to believe cohabitation leads to more successful marriages than those who never cohabited (57% versus 24% respectively).
But of course, this is famously incorrect.
Research has long shown that couples who live together before marriage face substantially higher rates of marital conflict, infidelity, domestic violence and subsequent divorce. A major 2019 study conducted at Stanford University explains, “We find that the association between marital dissolution and premarital cohabitation has not changed over time or across marriage cohorts.”
Conclusion
Cohabitation is not good marriage training. It is not marriage lite.
It is an agreement to live together with little relational clarity or commitment. One scholar called it a relationship “suffused with ambiguity.” What is most disturbing is living together outside of marriage is a strong predictor of divorce couples freely choose to engage in.
Marriage is the relationship that provides all the richness most people are seeking, as all the best research here, here, here, here, and here consistently shows.
Focus on the Family offers Hope Restored Marriage Intensives. Hope Restored is a biblically based, Christian counseling experience for couples facing a crisis moment in their marriage or suffering from years of disconnection and relationship decay. You can find out more about Hope Restored here.
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