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Marriage Before Kids Might Be Key To Marital Success

Marriage Before Baby Carriage Means You're Less Likely to Split
The hands of a marriage. Linked fingers two boyfriends after a wedding.Las manos de un matrimonio. Enlazados los dedos de dos novios tras una boda.
Manuel Orero Galan via Getty Images
The hands of a marriage. Linked fingers two boyfriends after a wedding.Las manos de un matrimonio. Enlazados los dedos de dos novios tras una boda.

No surprise here — the Marriage Foundation of the U.K. wants you to get married before you have babies.

The foundation, which was created by former High Court Judge Sir Paul Coleridge, looks to support and prolong marriage in the U.K. Coleridge, who served in the Family Division of the courts, left the High Court in 2014 to focus on his foundation and ultimately bring down divorce rates in the U.K., according to the Telegraph.

In an effort to support their movement, the foundation analyzed the historical family data of 1,783 mothers with children aged 14 or 15 and placed them into three categories: those married before their child was born, those married after giving birth and those who never married.

With the help of Professor Stephen McKay at the University of Lincoln, the group discovered 81 per cent of couples who married before having a baby stayed together as their child reached teen years, in comparison to 12 per cent who married after having a baby. Only eight per cent of couples who never married were still together when their child reached 14 or 15.

The report comes after the findings that for many millennials in the U.S., babies come before marriage, if they choose to marry at all, according to Psychology Today.

The New York Times reports that more than 50 per cent of pregnancies for American women under thirty occur outside of marriage. Assistant sociology professor, Arielle Kuperberg at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro believes labour markets and education are partially responsible for couples delaying and in some cases, putting off marriage. And here in Canada, it's a similar story, with common-law coupling on the rise, according to the 2011 census.

While the Marriage Foundation did not report on whether age and education played a significant role in the longevity of relationships, like Kuperberg, they did acknowledge higher income has a positive impact on staying together.

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