Divorce rates affected by increase in cohabitation

By the time I reached my mid teens, it seemed as though almost everyone I knew had divorced parents. I thought at first that it was just a local trend; parents filing for divorce and kids, at least seemingly, being forced to deal with it. But, this was far greater reaching than the streets of my neighborhood, for the national divorce rate at that time hovered around 50 percent and exhibited signs of inexorable increase. However, just like all things, this too has changed.

Based on U.S. Census Bureau statistics, divorce rates have stabilized in the past decade, neither decreasing nor increasing to any significant degree. However, statistics from The State of Our Unions, an annual report published by the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University, show that divorce rates are actually declining. The researchers speculate that this may be due to a concurrent decline in marriage rates.

What is on the rise is the rate of cohabitation among partners. Many couples are opting to live together for extended periods of time before marrying, something that was not nearly as common with past generations. Because a 'break-up' does not constitute a legal divorce (in most cases, anyway), couples that split are not accounted for in the statistics, thereby making it seem as though the total number of divorces may be in decline, when in reality, the total number of marriages are also in decline.