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Householders Living with Unrelated Adults
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Over 4 million households (4.5 percent of all households) contained adults living with one or more unrelated adults in 1988. These households grew to over 7 million by 2010 (4,291,000 male-headed households and 3,014,000 female-headed households). In the 1988 Current Population Survey, 81 percent of unrelated adult households contained only two people, 45 percent of which contained two adults of the same sex. Among these same-sex households, 56 percent were men. Twenty-five- to 44-year-olds comprised over 50 percent of all unrelated-adult households in 2010 as well as 1988. As the population ages, the 45-to-64-year-old age group has become the fastest-growing segment of these households, and it numbered over 2 million in 2010. It’s catching up to the over 3 million unrelated-adult households of the 25-to-44-year-olds in 2010.

Surveys are great marketing, sociological, and demographic research tools
In 1960 in the U.S., there were 439,000 unmarried-couple households based on two unmarried adults of the opposite sex living in the same household, but this increased 17-fold to 7,529,000 in 2010. “It is estimated that about a quarter of unmarried women age 25 to 39 are currently living with a partner and an additional quarter have lived with a partner at some time in the past. More than 60 percent of first marriages are now preceded by living together, compared to virtually none fifty years ago.” (Source: Unmarried Cohabitation - The State of Our Unions 2011, Social Indicators of Marital Health and Well-Being. By National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia and the Center for Marriage and Families at the Institute for American Values.)

Recalling how their parents fought, new couples often delay marriage since divorces are nasty for all

Marriage and divorce are both expensive; many cash-strapped young couples avoid both