In the United States cohabitation is an increasingly prevalent lifestyle. The number of 30- to 44-year-olds living as unmarried couples has more than doubled since the mid-1990s. Adults with lower levels of education — without college degrees — are twice as likely to cohabit as those with college degrees.
A new Pew Research Center analysis of census data suggests that less-educated adults are less likely to realize the economic benefits associated with cohabitation. The typical college-educated cohabiter is at least as well off as a comparably educated married adult and better off than an adult without an opposite-sex partner. By contrast, a cohabiter without a college degree typically is worse off than a comparably educated married adult and no better off economically than an adult without an opposite-sex partner. (Most adults without opposite-sex partners live with other adults or children.)
Among the 30- to 44-year-old U.S. adults who are the focus of this report, 7% lived with an opposite-sex partner in 2009, according to census data. The share is higher among adults without a college education (8%) than among those with college degrees (4%).
The proportion of adults who ever have cohabited is much larger than the share currently cohabiting, and it has grown to become a majority in recent decades, according to data from the National Survey of Family Growth. Among women ages 19-44, for example, 58% had ever lived with an opposite-sex unmarried partner in 2006-2008, up from 33% among a comparable group in 1987 (National Center for Marriage and Family Research, 2010).
This report finds that greater economic well-being is associated with cohabitation for adults with college degrees, but not for those without college degrees. The measurement used for economic well-being is median household income, which in this analysis has been adjusted for the size of the household and standardized to a household size of three.
Among college-educated adults, the median adjusted household income of cohabiters ($106,400 in 2009) slightly exceeded that of married adults ($101,160) and was significantly higher than that of adults without opposite-sex partners ($90,067). However, among adults without college degrees, the median adjusted household income of cohabiters ($46,540) was well below that of married couples ($56,800) and was barely higher than that of adults without opposite-sex partners ($45,033).
