Why millennials decide to ‘live together’ without thinking about marriage

Living together with a partner was once considered an important step towards a lifelong union, but younger generations aren’t necessarily sharing a house thinking about marriage.

Years ago, living together with a partner was an almost sacred decision, except in the last stages of the relationship, close to marriage. And just a few decades ago, many couples didn’t even live together before signing the papers.

This may still be the case for some people today, especially in some specific cultures or religions, but living together has become commonplace in countries like the UK and the US – and often unrelated to projects for the future. future.

New research in the UK offers a detailed picture of young people’s changing behavior and attitudes about moving in together with a love partner for the first time. The results of the studies confirm that younger generations are breaking with the habits and patterns of the past, as well as indicating that millennials’ perception of living together with that important person is particularly different from previous generations.

The researchers say that rather than being an important moment on the road to a permanent relationship, the decision to live together may be more about convenience. Apparently, young people continue to abandon the old concepts of what it means to have a partner, now and for the future, proving that the defining moments are not as important today as they were in the past.

No longer a ‘trial period’

The current moment is opportune to analyze trends in cohabitation, which is the fastest growing demographic in the UK.

2018 data from the National Statistics Institute of the United Kingdom (ONS) indicate that the number of couples living together is surpassing the number of married couples and single-parent families, after an increase of more than 25% between 2008 and 2018. 2018

And in the US, the pattern is similar. Millennials are more willing to live together with a love partner than Gen Xers were when they were the same age. Data from 2019 from the North American think tank (research and debate center) Pew Research Center shows that 12% of millennials were living together with their partners without marrying – against only 8% of young people of Gen X in 2003, with the same age.

Traditional narratives about living together are often directly related to marriage, either believing that people come together with the explicit intention of settling down or that they are at least “checking out” their longer-term compatibility with their partners. But younger generations may be proving these stories wrong.

Researchers at UCL (University College London) and the University of Saint Andrews, UK, examined changes in perception about what it means to live together with a first partner today compared to years ago, as well as the strength of these relationships.

Using data from two surveys on the socioeconomic status of individuals in the UK – the British Household Panel Survey and the Understanding Society – the researchers examined a sample of 3,233 people from three age groups: those born between 1974 and 1979, 1980 and 1984 and between 1985 and 1990, observed between 1991 and 2016.

The conclusion was that the habits of these groups regarding living together and maintaining relationships show dramatic differences, even with the relatively small age difference between the studied groups.

In terms of staying with partners, the group that was born in the 1970s had a 50% chance of staying together. But data from the younger groups indicated less long-term stability.

When examining how long couples stayed together, it was found that 25 to 27% of couples in the two older groups separated within two years of living together – while in the younger group (those born between 1985 and 1990 ), this percentage jumped to 43%.

The research also provides insight into the motivations for couples to live together. The data indicate that most people born in the 1970s considered moving in together for the first time as a period of experience with partners – a kind of “test for marriage”. But millennials seem to be less interested in this “test drive” approach and regard the change as a practical decision.

The study’s lead researcher, Alina Pelikh, an expert in demographic research at UCL, says there are many reasons for this, which include convenience and economic benefits, as well as less stigmatization about living together.

This conclusion confirms other data on the acceptance of people who decide to live together. More and more people approve of cohabitation, even for partners who have no plans to marry.

This is especially true for the younger generations. Additional data from the Pew Research Center from 2019 shows that more than three-quarters of 18 to 29-year-olds said it is acceptable for unmarried couples to live together, regardless of whether they plan to marry or not.

Galena Rhoades, a professor of psychology research and director of the Center for Family Research at the University of Denver, in the United States, agrees that changing social behavior in relation to living together has allowed younger generations to adopt a more casual conversation about cohabitation, without considering it a trial period for marriage.

“Living together is increasingly becoming a stage of dating rather than marriage,” says Rhoades. His research also indicates that millennials are less concerned about the decision to move in together as a path to marriage; young people from the younger generations report that they often started living together by chance.

“They don’t consider [morar junto] a decision or a commitment event in a relationship. And I believe that has become more and more real over time,” she says.

Changes with ‘unusual rapidity’

Alina Pelikh of UCL suggests that young people consider living together with a partner simply as an alternative to being single and that marriage or long-term partnership may come to be considered only after years of relationship.

She also highlights the speed with which these changes have taken place: “We see that there are many differences between the youngest, [que nasceram] closer to the 1990s, and [os que nasceram] closer to the 1970s”.

Pelikh explains that, typically, substantial changes in behavior like this usually occur over generations—say, between the 1950s and 1990s. But in this case, it was relatively short periods of time. She says that significant discrepancies between groups with only five years of age difference (as in the British study) are surprising and indicate that the change happened with unusual rapidity.

Pelikh points out that the study data only represent partnerships formed up to the age of 27. This is important because we don’t know what happens to millennials who live with their partners for the first time after that age.

She imagines that these relationships can theoretically be stronger, as they are motivated by factors such as people who know each other better or who are in a more stable economic position.

‘Overview’

While we have an idea of ​​the trends of Gen X and Millennials, it is unclear whether Gen Z will maintain these patterns of behavior.

Some signs indicate that Gen Z continues to take a more pragmatic approach, as do millennials. Indeed, Gen Z is also facing a tough economic situation and research has shown that Gen Z youth are increasingly pessimistic about an eventual recovery.

Additionally, as acceptance of cohabitation increases, Gen Z will be able to make decisions about living together with their partners without worrying about the stigma faced by many of their predecessors.

In some cases, Gen Z youth are also showing signs of prioritizing their establishment as individuals before couple formation. This may continue to delay the first cohabitation of younger generations, similar to the patterns observed by researchers among millennials.

Regardless of how this behavior develops among Gen Z, Pelikh believes these findings are particularly pertinent right now, as reaching life milestones is no longer linear for younger generations. And the fact that their transitions don’t follow “traditional” timelines or behaviors is still stigmatized.

In other words, it can be useful to demonstrate how often young people separate from their first cohabiting partners, to destroy at least some of the remaining judgment of older generations.

Pelikh believes this data underscores “the complexity of adulthood more broadly” – and could potentially offer a sigh of relief to people who feel shaken that they haven’t followed the path that was once considered the standard. “We all live our lives, but what we don’t have is the big picture,” she says.

Research like this helps to continue highlighting the dramatic way in which life’s defining events are changing over generations. What may have been significant for a generation is rapidly changing – and that can offer an increasingly clear picture of what the future of adulthood will look like.

Read the entirety of this report (in English) on the BBC Worklife website.