Study: Having a Baby Before Getting Married Doesn’t Increase Your Chances of Divorce
We’ve talked to you before about all of the things that science claims can increase your chance of divorce ( Facebook usage, large age gaps, long commutes), but now, according to a new study, having a baby out of wedlock isn’t one of them. And that’s a pretty big change from what they used to say.
The Council on Contemporary Families just released new research stating that couples who get married after having their first child now stay together at the same rate as those who tie the knot before having kids: The researchers looked at data from women who had their first child between 1985 and 1995 and found that couples who married after their babies were born were 60 percent more likely to divorce than those who were married beforehand. Then, the same data was gathered for women who gave birth between 1997 and 2010. During this time period, having a baby before marriage did not raise the couples’ risk of divorce at all.
Experts attribute the drastic change to a few factors, mainly the diminishing stigma around conceiving before marriage and more of an acceptance of cohabitation before marriage. Which, when you think about it, makes a lot of sense since couples are no longer rushing into shotgun weddings just because a babe is on the way.
Click here to read up on the entire study.
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