A new Gallup poll has found that young adults who are choosing to forgo both marriage and cohabitation has risen dramatically in the past decade.

Gallup is reporting that along with the decline in marriages among 18- to 29-year old in the U.S., the number of young people who are now opting to remain single and live alone has risen from 52 percent in 2004 to 64 percent in 2014.

“It is widely known that fewer young people today are getting married. But Gallup’s data reveal that young adults are not simply swapping marriage for living together, but rather staying single longer,” Gallup reports.

“This doesn’t necessarily mean young adults are staying out of relationships, just that they are less likely to be making the more serious commitment associated with moving in together — whether in marriage or not.

“It also doesn’t mean they are completely independent,” the pollster adds. “In 2013, Gallup found 14% of adults aged 24 to 34 were living under a parent’s roof.”

For adults in their thirties, marriage remains the dominant living arrangement, but even this group experienced an increase in those choosing “singledom” over a committed relationship, jumping from 15 to 19 percent during the same period. Marriage rates declined by 10 percent for this age group and cohabitation rates increased from seven to 13 percent during this time

Gallup’s survey, which is based on annual surveys of between 15,000 and 32,000 people each year, found that the living arrangements of adults in their 40’s is largely unchanged with six in 10 being married. Another seven or eight percent of this group reports being single or never married, and three to five percent are living with someone.

Gallup says the most important question for society is determining whether the dramatic shift in living arrangements seen among 20-somethings will persist into their 30’s, which will further the “revolution” in the U.S. household and family structure.

This may or may not be the case, especially since another recent Gallup poll found that at least attitudinally, adults in the 18- to 34-year-old age bracket “express nearly as much desire as older adults to be to be married, even as they themselves were far less likely to be married currently.”

They conclude: “But whether that desire among these younger Americans materializes in the coming years remains to be seen.”

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