Living together is just as emotionally beneficial as getting married





When it comes to emo tional health, young couples -especially women -do just as well moving in together as they do getting married, says a study . The findings suggest an evolving role of marriage among young people today . As recently as the 90s, young people still received emotional health benefits when they went from living together to getting married. “Now, it appears that youngsters get the same emotional boost from moving in together as they do from going directly to marriage,“ said study authors, adding, “There is no additional boost from getting married.“
Another significant finding was that the emotional benefits of cohabitation or marriage aren't limited to first relationships. The study found that young adults experienced a drop in emotional distress when they moved from a first relationship into cohabitation or marriage with a second partner.
The study included 8,700 people who were born between 1980 and 1984 and were interviewed every other year from 2000 to 2010. For those entering a first union, men experienced a decrease in emotional distress only if they went directly into marriage. There was no change in distress for men who cohabited with a female partner. That may be because men are more likely than women to report cohabiting as a way to test a relationship, the study said.