Cohabiting mothers are more likely to be living below the US poverty line than mothers living alone, according 
to research from the University of Virginia.
Researcher Annie Rorem, from the Centre on Education Policy and Workforce Competitiveness, said that much US research has previously overlooked unmarried mothers who are cohabiting with partners.
She said that the Pew Research Centre figures on the subject put all unmarried mothers – including mothers who are neither married nor living with a partner and single mothers living with partners – into one category. Those two groups, she said, are distinct from one another.
Cohabiting mothers are more likely than mothers not living with a partner to be living below the federal poverty line, Rorem said – about 42 percent of cohabiting mothers in Virginia are considered “poor” by federal standards, compared with 37 percent of single mothers not living with a partner.
The majority of cohabiting mothers – about 80pc – are in partnerships where neither partner has a college degree, compared to just 41pc of married mothers.
It appears less educated, lower-income women are far less likely to marry their partners, Rorem said.
This tallies with other research findings which have found that a “marriage gap” is opening up between college-educated Americans and those whose education tends to finish at second level, where the better-educated are more likely to get married and stay married compared to those who have lower levels of educational attainment.
Unmarried, cohabiting parents are also exposed to more risk, Rorem said, because they don’t qualify for alimony or child support if the relationship ends.
Rorem said she’s not quite sure what to make of the trends in cohabitation, but she said it’s a growing phenomenon worthy of study – cohabitation has been growing for decades. She said she plans to look at the national statistics to see if these trends hold up around the country.
“It’s a trend that’s on the rise and I think it’s worth paying attention to,” Rorem said. “More and more children are growing up in households with cohabiting partners.”