A new survey has found that most young American believe it is more important in life to be a parent than to be married.

The poll revealed that while 52 per cent of Americans under 30 believe being a parent is “one of the most important things” in life, only 30 per cent feel the same way about marriage.

The finding are from a Pew Research Centre study which surveyed adults aged 18-29 (so-called ‘millennials’) in January. The report was released on Wednesday.

The results differ from a poll done in 1997 when young adults were asked the same question during a Washington Post/Kaiser/Harvard survey.

Forty-two percent of young adults at the time said that being a good parent was very important to them, while 35 per cent put a successful marriage at the same level, according to the survey.

In the more recent study, there was not a strong correlation found between the marital status of their parents and millennials’ views on marriage.

Of those whose parents were married, 32 percent said marriage was one of the most important things. Of those whose parents were not married, 27 percent called marriage important.

By comparison, the correlation was much stronger among those surveyed in 1997. Forty-two percent with married parents said marriage was the most important thing in life, and 23 per cent who grew up with unmarried parents put marriage in the same category.

Young Americans are also finding less of a link between marriage and parenthood, said Paul Taylor, Pew executive vice president and one of the report’s authors.

The results follow on from an October survey from Pew which found that 40 per cent of all American adults believe marriage is becoming obsolete, up from just 28 per cent in 1978.

U.S. Census Bureau data show that only 22 per cent of the 18-29 set are married, compared with the 29 per cent of young adults who came of age in the 1990s and more than 40 per cent of young adults in the 1960s.

However, of the unmarried and childless millennials surveyed in October, 70 per cent said they want to get married. And 75 per cent of millennials acknowledged that it is easier to raise a family while married.

But the Pew surveys found that millennials are less likely to believe that a child has to have a father and a mother to grow up happily. A smaller percentage (47 per cent) of the women who have children are married, compared with their counterparts who came of age in the 1990s (52 per cent), according to Pew, citing Census data.

“Young adults still prefer to be married when they have children and still hold marriage in high regard, but they have more options than they used to because of the acceptability of having children in an unmarried relationship,” said Dr Andrew Cherlin, professor of sociology and public policy at Johns Hopkins University.