Evidence of the Benefits of Marriage

The official statistics and published research on marriage, stability and children in the United Kingdom - August 2026

Coalition for Marriage holds that marriage - the lifelong union of one man and one woman - is the gold standard for families and society. The figures below are drawn from official statistics and published research, each with its source, for use in letters to MPs, councils, schools and the press. Every source is free to check online. These figures are averages, never verdicts on any family - and they are the reason policy should back the arrangement that most often holds.

THE SCALE OF THE RETREAT

1. In 2023, 231,949 marriages and civil partnerships were formed in England and Wales. The 224,402 marriages among them stand 44 per cent below the 400,000 of 1973 - while the United Kingdom's population has grown by eleven million.^{1 2}

2. Fewer than half of adults are now married or in a civil partnership. The 2021 Census put the share at 46.9 per cent, down from 58.4 per cent in 1991 - and on the ONS's separate annual estimates it has slipped from 51.5 per cent in 2014 to 49.5 per cent in 2024.^{3 4}

3. Cohabiting-couple families reached 3.5 million in 2025 - 17.6 per cent of all UK families. Married couples remain 65.3 per cent of the total - roughly two thirds.⁵

STABILITY - THE HEART OF THE CASE

4. The Government's own evidence review reports Office for National Statistics Longitudinal Study data - 82 per cent of adults aged 16 to 54 who were married in 1991 were living with the same partner ten years later, against 61 per cent of those cohabiting.⁶

5. The Institute for Fiscal Studies, following Millennium Cohort families, found just 12 per cent of couples who were married when their child was born had experienced a period of separation by the child's seventh birthday - against 32 per cent of cohabiting couples, nearly three times as many.⁷

6. Married parents with dependent children under sixteen split up at 1.3 per cent a year - cohabiting parents at 5.3 per cent, four times the rate. Unmarried parents are around one fifth of couples but account for half of all family breakdown.⁸

7. Couples who marry before their first child arrives have a 76 per cent chance of staying together over the following fifteen years. For cohabiting couples it is 31 per cent.⁹

8. The claim that half of marriages end in divorce is a myth. Of couples who married in 2013, 16.8 per cent had divorced by their tenth anniversary - more than 83 per cent had not. And the ONS's own comparison shows the couples who married in 1998 divorced more at the same point - more than one in five (23.6 per cent) within ten years, and 40.7 per cent within twenty-five.¹⁰

"MARRIED COUPLES WERE JUST BETTER OFF ANYWAY" - ANSWERED

9. No. The researchers found the "gap in stability runs across all five income quintiles". Among the very richest parents, 2.9 per cent split up if cohabiting against 1 per cent if married. Among the very poorest, 8.9 per cent if cohabiting against 2.8 per cent if married. The very poorest married couples are slightly more likely to stay together than the very richest cohabiting ones.¹¹

10. A June 2026 analysis of the entire Millennium Cohort sample - 3,324 couples followed for up to fourteen years, carried out with the Centre for Social Justice - found that marriage itself accounts for half or more of the stability gap between married and cohabiting parents.¹²

CHILDREN

11. By age 14, 46 per cent of UK children are not living with both natural parents. Among teenagers whose natural parents are still together, 84 per cent of those parents are married.¹³

12. Children born to married parents are the least likely to miss a pass in GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education) English and Maths - 26 per cent of boys and 19 per cent of girls fall short, against 39 and 34 per cent where the parents never married, and 54 and 37 per cent for children born to a single parent.¹⁴

HEALTH

13. Among men aged 20 to 64 in England and Wales, single men died in 2019 at an age-standardised rate of 509.5 per 100,000. Men who were married or in a civil partnership died at 165.9 - roughly a third of the rate.¹⁵

14. The Office for National Statistics finds the greatest suicide risk among divorced men - almost three times more likely to end their lives than men who were married or in a civil partnership.¹⁶

THE ASPIRATION GAP

15. The young want marriage. Among unmarried adults under 30, 86 per cent of women and 80 per cent of men say they want to marry¹⁷ - and three quarters of all Gen Z adults want to marry too.¹⁸ Yet on present trends only 58 per cent of Gen Z women and 56 per cent of Gen Z men ever will.¹⁹

The gap between what a generation wants and what it will get is the gap the Coalition for Marriage exists to close. Read more at https://www.c4m.org.uk.

REFERENCES

1. Office for National Statistics, Marriages and civil partnerships in England and Wales: 2023, released 18 November 2025. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/marriagecohabitationandcivilpartnerships/bulletins/marriagesinenglandandwalesprovisional/2023
2. Centre for Social Justice, I Do? The state of marriage in the United Kingdom, February 2026. https://www.centreforsocialjustice.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/CSJ-I_Do.pdf
3. Office for National Statistics, Marriage and civil partnership status in England and Wales: Census 2021. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/marriagecohabitationandcivilpartnerships/articles/marriageandcivilpartnershipstatusenglandandwalescensus2021/2023-02-22
4. Office for National Statistics, Population estimates by marital status and living arrangements, England and Wales: 2024. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/bulletins/populationestimatesbymaritalstatusandlivingarrangements/2024
5. Office for National Statistics, Families and households in the UK: 2025, released 17 April 2026. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/families/bulletins/familiesandhouseholds/2025
6. Department for Work and Pensions research report no. 1031, Are household formation decisions and living together fraud & error affected by the Living Together as a Married Couple policy? An Evidence Review, May 2022, page 24. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/64a57b6a4dd8b3000f7fa507/living-together-fraud-household-formation.pdf
7. Institute for Fiscal Studies, Cohabitation, marriage, relationship stability and child outcomes, Report R87, Table 7.1. https://ifs.org.uk/sites/default/files/output_url_files/r87.pdf
8. Marriage Foundation, Unmarried parents account for one fifth of couples but half of all family breakdown, briefing note, December 2013. https://marriagefoundation.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/MF-briefing-note-proportion-of-family-breakdown-from-cohabitation-v2.pdf
9. Marriage Foundation, The cost to Britain's children of the trend away from marriage, September 2019. https://marriagefoundation.org.uk/research/the-cost-to-britains-children-of-the-trend-away-from-marriage/
10. Office for National Statistics, Divorces and Dissolutions in England and Wales: 2023, released 2 July 2025. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/divorce/bulletins/divorcesinenglandandwales/2023
11. Marriage Foundation, Married poor more stable than unmarried rich, October 2023. https://marriagefoundation.org.uk/research/married-poor-more-stable-than-unmarried-rich/
12. The Timing of Marriage and Union Dissolution, research briefing, June 2026. https://marriagefoundation.org.uk/research/the-timing-of-marriage-and-union-dissolution/
13. Marriage Foundation, Source of Family Breakdown. https://marriagefoundation.org.uk/research/source-of-family-breakdown/
14. Marriage Foundation, Families and Education, May 2023. https://marriagefoundation.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/MF-report-Families-and-Education.pdf
15. Office for National Statistics, Mortality by marital status in England and Wales: 2010 to 2019. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/articles/mortalitybymaritalstatusinenglandandwales/2010to2019
16. Office for National Statistics, Who is most at risk of suicide?, September 2017. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/articles/whoismostatriskofsuicide/2017-09-07
17. Centre for Social Justice, I Do?, as source 2 above.
18. Opinium, survey of 2,000 UK adults aged 18 to 27, for Charles Russell Speechlys. https://www.charlesrussellspeechlys.com/en/insights/expert-insights/private-client/2025/gen-z-and-milestone-planning/
19. Marriage Foundation, The collapse of marriage among Gen Z, December 2024. https://marriagefoundation.org.uk/research/the-collapse-of-marriage-among-gen-z/