College-educated women ... have a 78 per cent chance of their first marriage lasting at least 20 years, while women with a high-school education have only about half that chance

In our more individualized times, where we are less connected to extended families, affluent nuclear families can buy support that helps keep families together, from childcare to couples counselling. Less well-off families are on their own, and the impact is startling: in the US, college-educated women aged between 22 and 44 have a 78 per cent chance of their first marriage lasting at least 20 years, while women with a high-school education have only about half that chance.

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But in the end, stability matters, and it tends to be greater in married households, despite claims that long-term cohabitation is equivalent. Children in France, for example, are 66 per cent more likely to see their parents break up if they are cohabiting rather than married.

B. Duffy, The Generation Divide (2023), loc. 2,517 & 2,528