Marriage Promotes Longevity, Study Finds

The number of Americans who live together without being married continues to rise — from 400,000 in 1960 to 7.6 million in 2011, according to census data. New research has found that married people live longer than their cohabitating counterparts.

“This helps us to understand the implications of this relatively new rise in cohabitation,” MSU sociologist Hui Liu, the study’s lead researcher, told the Deseret News. “Many assume marriage and cohabitation are wholly the same, but our research showed that cohabitation, generally, led to a shorter lifespan.”