A new government study found that men and women who live together before marriage no longer run a higher risk of divorcing like they did in years ago.  Oh, but I should mention... being engaged does help.  "Living together before marriage is not playing as big a role in predicting divorce as it used to," said Casey Copen, the lead author of the study.  But the study, which surveyed approx 22,000 men and women, found that the divorce rate is higher if the shacking up couple isn't engaged.

So if you're living together and marriage isn't in the works, but you do eventually end up getting married, that marriage is more likely to end.  How much more likely? About 7 percent.  If a couple is living together without an engagement, the chance of the marriage lasting more than 15 years is 53 percent. For an engaged couple living together, that number is 60 percent. Men and women with Bachelor's degrees are more likely to stay married for at least 20 years.  However, they also delay marriage.  Asian women are more likely than other races to have their first marriage last longer than 20 years.

Confused yet?

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