As Marriage and Parenthood Drift Apart, Poll Shows Public Is Concerned about Social Impact

As Marriage and Parenthood Drift Apart, Poll Shows Public Is Concerned about Social Impact
Americans believe that births to unwed women are a big problem for society, and they take a mixed view at best of cohabitation without marriage. Yet these two nontraditional behaviors have become commonplace among younger adults, who have a different set of moral values from their elders about sex, marriage and parenthood, this Pew Research Center survey finds.

This generational values gap helps to explain the decades-long surge in births to unmarried women – which now comprise nearly four-in-ten (37%) births in the United States – as well as the sharp rise in living together without getting married, which, the Pew survey finds, is something that nearly half of all adults in their 30s and 40s have done for at least a portion of their lives.

Read the full article and view a list of findings at the Pew Research Center Web site.

Or, read the complete report Generation Gap in Values, Behaviors at the Pew Research Center Web site.