Good News: *This* Is Why Millennials Are Getting Fewer Divorces
Millennials get a bad rap sometimes, but they also do a lot of great things, such as their innovation in food, consumption of technology and persistence in the gig economy. There’s also one thing millennials are doing better than generations before them: marriage. Believe it or not, millennials are staying married more so than their parents. According to the National Center for Family and Marriage Research’s study, millennials wait longer to marry for a variety of reasons, which has been driving down the divorce rates.
The number one reason for the delay is cohabitation prior to an engagement, which helps test long-term compatibility and weed out relationships that might not have otherwise survived a marriage. For many, cohabitation is the “trial union” that allows a couple to save money and/or develop and mature their relationship before marriage. Researchers are suggesting that this trend toward cohabitation — especially when a couple is older — might be the reason for lower divorce rates.
In the last 20+ years, the rate of women cohabitating has gone up by 82 percent, and in the last 50 years, the rate for both sexes has gone up by a whopping 900 percent. While this is not that surprising, it’s still encouraging. Go us!
If you’re married, tell us at what age you married and if you lived together before in the comments!
(h/t Tech Insider, photo via Getty)