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More Americans Find Living Together OK

By Sharon Jayson,

USA Today

Posted: 2008-06-09 11:51:43

Filed Under: Nation News

(June 9) - An analysis of cohabitation, marriage and divorce data from 13 countries, including the USA, shows that living together has become so mainstream that growing numbers of Americans view it as an alternative to marriage.

The National Marriage Project study of a sampling of Western European and Scandinavian nations, Australia, Canada and New Zealand found that cohabitation elsewhere is far more common and indeed viewed as an option to matrimony. The study found that anywhere from 15% to 30% of all couples identified themselves as living together, compared with about 10% right now in the USA.

"We're still the most marrying of all these countries, but the data are clearly headed in the one common direction. It's headed in the direction of cohabitation as an alternative," says David Popenoe, the report's author and co-director of the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University, which studies marriage and child well-being.

Because the most recent data analyzed from some countries is two years old or more, and because increasing numbers of celebrities are living together, Popenoe says his projections take into account slight increases over time.

"Today, celebrities from Hollywood and elsewhere are looked up to," he says. "They have become role models. They are far more influential today than ever in the past."

A previous study by the same group showed that since 1970, the number of Americans living together has increased from about 500,000 opposite-sex couples to more than 5 million.

Using databases of Census-like information in the countries studied, the new analysis found that the marriage rate is down in all countries except Norway and Sweden, which have had traditionally low marriage rates. In the USA from 1995 to 2005, the marriage rate declined almost 20%.

The report will be posted online Wednesday.

Joselin Linder, 33, of Brooklyn is living with a boyfriend now and has lived with two others in the past. Now she's co-author of the new book The Good Girl's Guide to Living in Sin and says many women her age and younger view living with a romantic partner as a convenience. She says it's not about avoiding marriage.

"It's what's happening in the world of dating, and it's not necessarily a path anywhere," she says.

The new report cites Census data showing that about 40% of all opposite-sex, unmarried couples live with their own child under 18.

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"We often think of cohabitation as a phenomenon of young adulthood before people start having kids, but … as marriage is being delayed to later and later ages, more children are born before marriage, and many of the couples are cohabiting before the birth," says R. Kelly Raley, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Texas-Austin, who did not participate in the study.

Raley isn't convinced that cohabitation is being viewed as a marriage alternative, citing a 2001 study of her own. The evidence, she found, didn't suggest people cohabit to start a family, which she says is what would be expected if cohabitation were considered a marriage alternative.

The National Marriage Project report also cites findings from earlier studies showing that children of cohabiting couples are more likely to experience emotional problems, alcoholism and drug abuse. But Raley says the research leaves unanswered questions.

"Many cohabiting couples use cohabitation to weather economic uncertainty or uncertainty about a relationship," she says. "We can't tell if the negative outcome for the child is due to the cohabitation or to the economic uncertainty or maybe the relationship uncertainty. That's a limitation of the data."

2008-06-09 10:10:03

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1068 comments

dabe405 04:41:39 PM Jun 10 2008

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I'VE BEEN LIVING WITH MY BF FOR ALMOST 4 YEARS AND SOMETIMES I THINK I WANT MY OWN SPACE. WHEN YOU LIVE WITH SOMEONE ITS OK BUT I RATHER HE HAVE HIS OWN PLACE AND I HAVE MINES SO WHEN HE GETS ON MY NERVES I CAN KICK HIM OUT. MARRIAGE IS A VERY BIG STEP TO ME AND I'M ONLY DOING IT ONCE. ITHINK ITS BEST FOR THEM TO HAVE THEIR OWN PLACE AND YOU HAVE YOUR OWN PLACE UNTIL MARRIAGE.

phunktastic1202 04:12:51 PM Jun 10 2008

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adrenaline2001 11:54:49 PM Jun 09 2008

Report This! LOL, why buy the cow, when you can get the milk for free?

>>>>
perhaps because women aren't livestock or property that a man "owns"??! relationships are based on love, commitment, and trust....not ownership.

phunktastic1202 04:11:12 PM Jun 10 2008

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i've been living with my boyfriend for about a year and a half now. i've had people tell me to my face that when i DO marry my boyfriend, it will not last because i've lived with him before. AS THOUGH THAT ACTUALLY MAKES A DIFFERENCE! stop being judgemental as to what other people want to do with their lives. some people, like me, take marriage to be an incredibly serious legal document that i'd like to do only once. i'm not going to get married at 21 years old for the sake of being married, but i did want to live with my boyfriend. well, after a year and a half of living together, we know each other well enough to KNOW that we're going to get married when we have the financial security to raise a family. thats all there is to it...

rdaloia294 09:30:55 AM Jun 10 2008

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The convenience and freedom factors of the self absorbed people aren't thinking about the children they would "be responsible for raising" and the problem would perpetuate until society slips into the abyss. It's difficult to have convenience and responsiblities. One requires dicsipline and sacrifice the other requires nothing.

texasldy409 08:10:00 AM Jun 10 2008

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After being married for many years,, just try to get out of it.
It will cost you everything you ever had, or will have.
Just live together,, its alot cheaper, and you will still have your freedom.
Then when its over,,and it will be over. All you have to do is move. Simple as can be, it is the best way in these times.

calmeblondy 07:25:56 AM Jun 10 2008

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marriage licences should have experation or renew dates

djbruski 06:45:38 AM Jun 10 2008

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Marriage. What other document do you sign or arrangement do you enter into that immediately entitles the other person to half of whatever you have. What crap.

catfishandray 03:02:32 AM Jun 10 2008

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Type your own comment here

There has and always will be circumstances that are right or wrong, no gray area, whatsoever. Just because a majority of people are willing to accept something doesn't make it right. Hitler chose to have his military kill 6 million Jews during WWII. The majority of Nazis were wrong for having done that. People deciding to live with one another should have more faith, believe and trust within themselves. They should have more self-worth. Believing that they can really have a life long married relationship, like they should. They need to quit looking at statistics, and like I just mentioned, have more faith in their own abilities to have a lasting marriage, to commit to marriage. Again, just because more people do anything, never makes it right, because no matter what, there are and always have been things that will remain right, and things that will always remain wrong, no gray areas.