Women prefer live-in relationship over marriage

According to researchers at the National Center for Family and Marriage Research at Bowling Green State University, the percentage of women who have cohabitated with someone has almost doubled over the past 25 years.

Dr. Wendy Manning and graduate student Bart Stykes, analysed and prepared the family profile, and manning said that it was surprising to see the level increase in the last 5 years, as almost 70 per cent of women have lived with a cohabiting partner.

In 1987, one-third of women ages 19-44 had lived with a partner and by 2011-13 that number had jumped to almost two-thirds. While all age groups experienced an increase in cohabitation, the greatest increase in cohabitation occurred in women age 40-44.

Cohabitation continues to be the typical pathway to marriage as over two-thirds of women who first married in the last decade lived with their partner before the wedding. Younger women still appear to prefer living with a partner to tying the knot. The majority-65 per cent-of partnered women ages 19-24 reported being in a cohabiting, instead of marital, union in 2011-13.

Manning said that though most young women would get married eventually, they just decide to live together first.