What played an important role in pushing cohabitation rates higher?

Population experts at the Census Bureau say cohabitation rates jumped in just one year. Researchers say the Great Recession played a big part in pushing cohabitation rates higher. Increasingly a major difference between couples who get married and couples who do not is money.
    Last year the average couple spent almost twenty-seven thousand dollars on their wedding. For some couples, that price may be out of reach. Yet no one has to spend that much.
    Besides, many people also think about whether they can afford to take care of a family. Americans may agree that couples should be financially secure before they get married. Yet the weak economy has made financial security even harder to reach.
    The difficulty of finding and keeping a job may be one reason why some couples are choosing not to marry. It might also be a reason why more couples are deciding to live together.
    Researchers have also found that a college education increasingly influences decisions about marriage. Fifty years ago, about three-fourths of American adults were married, no matter how much education they had. Today, only slightly more than half of adults are married. And most of those married people have college degrees.
    This connection between education and marriage seems to be having several effects. The first is that Americans are waiting longer to get married. In other words, marriage now often gets delayed until people finish college, then maybe graduate school, then establish a career. A second effect of education relates again to money. Some people believe they do not have enough money to get married.
    Researchers found that married couples in thirty and forty-four without college degrees earned about twenty percent more than similar couples who only lived together. Couples in their thirties and early forties with college degrees earned more than twice as much as unmarried, less-educated adults of the same age.
   Combined, these factors have reshaped what an American family means. More adults are staying single or staying single longer. And marriage is becoming less common, at least among people who did not go to college.