Cohabitation in numbers
Living together without marrying has gone from unusual to ordinary. Here's what the numbers say in the UK and the United States.
· 3 min read
How many couples cohabit in the UK?
In 2024 there were 3.5 million cohabiting couple families in the UK – 17.7 per cent of all families, up from 3.1 million, or 16.4 per cent, in 2014. Married couples still made up the majority: 12.8 million families, or 65.1 per cent.
3.5 million
- 201416.4 %
- 202417.7 %
Source: Office for National Statistics, 2025
How many couples cohabit in the US?
In the US, 7 per cent of adults lived with an unmarried partner in 2023, up from 6 per cent in 2019. It is most common among the young: in 2019, 12 per cent of adults under 30 were cohabiting, compared with 5 per cent in 1995. Many more have done it at some point – 59 per cent of adults aged 18 to 44 had lived with an unmarried partner.
59 %
What the numbers say – and don't
The numbers don't say anything about what living together is like. But they show it has become an ordinary – often long-term – way of life. And that many couples live under rules quite different from marriage, often without knowing it.
Sources
- Families and households in the UK: 2024 – Office for National Statistics
- Share of US adults living without a romantic partner has ticked down in recent years – Pew Research Center
- Marriage and cohabitation in the U.S. – Pew Research Center