US News

More say ‘I don’t’ to nups

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We’re just not the marrying kind.

Only half of US adults are taking a walk down the aisle to say “I do” — down from 72 percent in 1960 — and 40 percent think marriage is obsolete, a surprising Pew Research Center and Time Magazine survey showed yesterday.

The dizzying dip in marriage stats is sharpest among 20-somethings: Two years ago, 26 percent of the under-30 crowd were married compared with 68 percent in 1960, according to the survey. A whopping 44 percent of younger adults think marriage is headed for extinction.

The phone survey of 2,691 people found Americans are ambivalent about the confounding changes in marriages and families. Sixty-nine percent think the growing number of single moms — pervasive for years on TV shows like “Murphy Brown” and “Gilmore Girls” — is bad for society.

Sixty-one percent say kids need both a father and mother to raise them happily. A minority — 43 percent — disapprove of people shacking up rather than marrying and of unmarried and gay couples raising kids.

The survey results weren’t surprising to New York singles.

“Marriage has always been obsolete,” said Tammy Infusino, 24, a musician from Hell’s Kitchen. “People have been cheating forever. It’s more about what you have with who you are with, not what you call it.”

The survey found that with the decline in marriages, there’s been a corresponding uptick in couples shacking up.

Cohabitation has doubled since 1990; 44 percent of those surveyed said they’ve cohabited at some point.

“Kids today would rather just live together and leave when they get bored,” said Upper East Side divorcee Pam Hutchinson, 55.

Added never-married retired teacher Theresa Piccola, 57: “Kids today are afraid of commitment because most of their parents’ marriages have failed or have been unhappy.”

The survey found the higher the education you have, the more likely you are to marry. In 2008, 64 percent of college grads were married compared with 48 percent of those with a high-school diploma or less.

The survey also showed love trumps money when it comes to marriage. A whopping 93 percent said love was the primary reason to get married, 87 percent cited the lifelong commitment and 81 percent said companionship were top reasons to wed.