BETTER PUT A RING ON IT:

A growing body of sociological findings strongly suggest that family instability has negative effects on children reaching well into adulthood, from perceived well-being to educational attainment to income.

To wit: The Institute for Family Studies and the Social Trends Institute just released their 2017 World Family Map, a fascinating look at family trends all across the developed world, drawing on data from more than 60 countries.

One of the report's key findings? A link between cohabitation -- when two unmarried people live together -- and family instability. [...]

This new research finds that children born to cohabiting couples in the United States and Europe are much more likely to see their parents break up before they turn 12 than are children born to married couples. Indeed, in 17 European countries and in the United States, highly educated cohabiting couples with children are typically more likely to break up than less-educated married couples with children. This suggests that educational status and economics aren't the whole ball game. In 68 countries across the globe, the rise in the share of children born to cohabiting couples is associated with increased family instability for children, the report says. The effect is present even for famously progressive countries like France. In the U.S., according to the report, among children whose mothers have high education levels, 49 percent of children in cohabiting families will experience a breakup in the family, compared to just 18 percent of children whose parents are married. And even highly educated cohabiting parents in the U.S. experience higher levels of breakups (49 percent) than do less-educated married parents (26 percent).

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