How much has cohabitation increased?
The number of unmarried couples living together has soared ten-fold since 1970:There were only 430,000 couples cohabiting in March, 1960 and a staggering 4.2 million doing so in March, 1998. The Census estimate of 4.23 million couples cohabiting was taken in March, 1998. Cohabitation lasts only 1.3 years on average. By December of that year probably another 2 million were doing so. So the number cohabiting in a year is probably 6 million couples, nearly triple the 2.24 million who married in 1998. Cohabitation has become the dominant way men and women in America begin their relationships — not marriage. According to Dr. Linda Waite of the University of Chicago, “Recent figures show that almost two-thirds of young adult men and women chose to cohabit first rather than marry directly.” The pattern is taken into the church. In dozens of cities, hundreds of pastors tell me the majority of couples coming for a church wedding are living together.
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