Living together is no longer simply a trial run for marriage, but it
has replaced marriage for many couples, an academic study into the shape
of family life in Britain has found.The finding comes after official figures showed that the proportion of cohabiting couples with children equalled that for married couples for the first time, the Daily Telegraph reports.
The figures also showed that the number of cohabiting couples with dependent children in the UK increased by more than 290,000 in the last decade, a rise of 34 per cent.
At the same time the number of married couples with children living with them fell by almost 320,000.
Research by sociologists at Leeds University on behalf of The Co-operative Legal Services into attitudes into marriage and family life, found that twice as many people think that children should simply be raised in a stable relationship as believe their parents should actually be married.
It also showed that growing numbers of people see cohabitation as a practical arrangement rather than a step towards tying the knot.
Although there are still more married couples overall, because marriages tend to last longer, 38 per cent of all cohabiting couples had children, the same proportion as for married couples.
Polling carried out by YouGov for the report also found that only 27 per cent of people now believe that people should be married before having children. By contrast 53 per cent thought it was not important provided the parents were in, “a committed relationship.”
While 30 per cent of those polled said they would live with a partner to, “test the strength,” of a relationship before marriage, 20 per cent said they had no desire ever to get married and 21 per cent said they would do it simply to reduce bills.
According to the British Millennium Cohort Study, only 10 per cent of married couples will have broken up by the time their child is five, compared with 25 per cent of cohabiting couples.
Only 35 per cent of British children born into a cohabiting union will live with both parents throughout their childhood, compared with 70 per cent born to married couples.
According to the only piece of Irish research on cohabitation, only one in four cohabiting relationships in Ireland last seven years or more.
The rest end in marriage or breakup. Couples who cohabit before marriage are more likely to divorce than those who do not cohabit first.
“Cohabitation is not just seen as a trial run before marriage and children, but, for an increasing number of people, as a replacement for marriage as a setting for both long-term relationships and the raising of children,” the report concludes.
But despite figures showing that unmarried couples are more likely to split up, a quarter of those surveyed wrongly believed that cohabiting couples had the same legal rights as married people in issues such as finances and child custody in the case of separation.
Christina Blacklaws, Director of Family Law at The Co-operative Legal Services, said, “There are all sorts of different reasons why people cohabit but one of the important aspects of this report is that it shows how socially acceptable it is as a way of forming a family. That was always a taboo in days gone by; you might live together, or ‘live in sin’ as a precursor to marriage, but what the research now shows is that for the majority of people it is fine if people chose to live together and have children. For me as a lawyer the big issue here is that despite that level of acceptance, people still labour under the complete misunderstanding that if you are in an unmarried family the law is going to protect you.”