Christian Family Services Ministry

10-13-2016 – A Word to the Wise: A key change in marital status patterns has been the large increase in cohabitation or ‘‘living together’’ among unmarried couples). In the years 1980–84, 29 percent of out-of-wedlock births were to cohabiting couples. By 1990–94, this proportion increased to 39 percent, according to data from NCHS’ National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) and the National Survey of Families and Households. Most of the increase in births to unmarried women since the early 1980s was in births to unmarried cohabiting women.