British Study Finds Marriage Has 'Little If Any Benefit' to Kids

Filed under: In The News

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Find yourself single and pregnant and think you must rush to the altar for the sake of the child? You might want to slow down. Living together may be just fine.

New research from the Institute of Fiscal Studies in the U.K. shows being married has "little if any benefit" to a kid's "social or cognitive" development, London's The Guardian reports.

The IFS report notes that married couples are often better off than those who are single, and have better educations, as well, but children born out of wedlock to co-habiting couples don't seem to fare differently from those whose parents were wed, according to the newspaper.

"It is true that children born to married couples are on average more cognitively and emotionally successful than children born to cohabiting couples," Ellen Greaves, IFS research economist and co-author of the study, tells The Guardian. "But careful analysis shows that this largely reflects the differences between the types of people who decide to get married and those who don't."

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