● Marriage rates to fall if Government sticks to its plans
● Demographic time-bomb set to worsen
● Poll shows public uneasy about proposed changes
● Andy Burnham should scrap marriage “auto-enrolment” and protect right to choose
Government plans to give cohabiting couples many of the rights conferred by marriage risk worsening the demographic time-bomb facing the country, according to a new analysis by a leading think-tank.
Research conducted by the Centre for Social Justice concludes that England and Wales would have seen over 75,000 fewer babies born per year if reforms such as those proposed by A Fairer End to Relationships had been in place for the past 15 years.
The analysis concludes that the “marriage-lite” proposals are likely to have other damaging effects, such as a further fall in the historically low marriage rate and more couples breaking up, instead calling on the Government to protect couples’ “right to choose”.
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A previous study by the CSJ published in early July has exposed the severity of falling birth rates in the UK, which threaten future living standards because the country will be short of workers to support growing numbers of pensioners.
The think-tank branded July 1 this year as “death day” because according to official figures that was the date on which the number of deaths exceeded the number of births.
Under the proposed reforms, cohabitees in England and Wales who have continuously lived together for three years or more or who cohabit and share a child would be automatically granted greater rights to each other’s property and finances.
But the public are uneasy about the lack of agency the proposals afford cohabitees, according to polling commissioned by the CSJ.
A survey of over 1,500 adults in the UK by JL Partners revealed opposition to a central tenet of the plans – automatic entitlement to new rights rather than an ‘opt in’ system whereby couples would have to actively sign up to the new regime.
Nearly 60 per cent of those polled agreed that “couples should choose whether they marry rather than automatically gaining marriage-style rights after a set period of time”.
The public was also worried that otherwise happy relationships would suffer from the stipulation in the proposals that if couples wanted to reject marriage-style rights they would have to go through a legal process before they could opt out.
By a clear majority (56 per cent to 13 per cent) the public does not think that living together should, by itself, confer a legal claim on a partner’s savings, property or pension.
The poll also found that opposition to the plans rises steadily with age. People aged 18-34 agreed by slight margins that the reforms should be a priority for the Government. But those aged over 34 disagreed, with net agreement (the difference between agree and disagree) rising to minus 39 among those aged over 65.
The CSJ reached its conclusions after a forensic examination of the experience of Finland, which introduced “marriage-lite” proposals in 2011 very similar to those now put forward for England and Wales.
It suggests that the decline in marriage rates in Finland relative to comparative countries – and expected to be mirrored in England and Wales if the proposals are enacted – reduced the stability of relationships and weakened trust in long-term relationships.
The report, Finnishing Marriage?, says: “By examining countries with similar demographics to Finland and comparing their marriage, fertility and coupling-up rates, the CSJ has been able to project what Finland’s family and birth rates could have been if the reforms had not been introduced.
“The CSJ estimates that women’s first marriage rate in Finland was 23 per cent lower within seven years of the reform than it would have been in its absence. The change was not followed by an increase in household stability amongst cohabiting couples, which also declined in the following years. The analysis estimates that the reform reduced marriage rates without achieving a requisite increase in household stability.
“The results also indicate a significant association with lower fertility as the Finnish fertility rate fell by an estimated 21 per cent by 2018, compared to similar countries where reforms did not happen. Academic studies have shown that in Finland, 42 per cent of the decline in first births has been attributed to the decline in fertility in cohabiting couples.
“All forms of couple relationships appeared to be affected by the reform. The proportion of two adult working age households in Finland fell by 16 per cent from the reform in 2011 to 2020. The divergence began to grow in 2014, consistent with an expected lag.
“If England and Wales had introduced an equivalent reform to Finland in 2011, the analysis suggests there could have been 111,014 fewer marriages between 2012 and 2023, with 24,855 fewer marriages in 2023 alone. The Total Fertility Rate (TFR) in 2023 falls to 1.26, rather than 1.44, and in 2024 falls to 1.25 rather than 1.41.
“Since 2021 this amounts to an estimated 75,000 fewer babies being born per year. Applying the analysis from 2012 takes the average reduction in births to 86,000 per year, following higher fertility patterns in the years preceding the pandemic.
Shadow Justice Secretary, Nick Timothy MP, said:
Conservatives have long understood that strong societies depend on strong families. That does not mean ignoring the realities faced by couples who live together or pretending marriage solves every social problem. But it does mean recognising that law shapes behaviour, institutions matter, and strong families are built on choices people make and keep.
The new Prime Minister promised change from the consensus he inherited, and rethinking these cohabitation reforms would be a good place to start. Adults should have choice over the legal consequences of their relationships. The right response to changing how people live is not to erase the distinction between the choices people make, but to respect it.
Sophia Worringer, Deputy Research Director at the Centre for Social Justice, said:
Finland should serve as a warning. Many people in cohabiting relationships do not want to get married, and the Government should not impose marriage-style financial obligations on them by stealth. The public want greater choice over their private lives, and these proposals would impose a marriage ‘auto-enrolment’ to thousands of cohabiting relationships.
The lesson from Finland is clear: marriage fell, cohabitation declined, and fertility dropped. Andy Burnham should scrap any plans to follow its example. With birth rates already at historic lows and population ageing piling pressure on the public finances, the potential costs are too great, and the evidence too significant, to ignore.
NOTES TO EDITORS
Polling conducted by JL Partners on 12 June 2026 with sample of 1,515 adults in the UK.
Methodology: The analysis uses a synthetic control method, comparing Finland’s actual marriage and fertility rates after its 2011 cohabitationreform with a “Synthetic Finland” constructed from a weighted combination of Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Estonia and Lithuania, whose pre-reform trends closely matched Finland’s. Results were cross-checked using difference-in-differences analysis. The marriage estimates apply the percentage gaps between actual and Synthetic Finland to ONS marriage rates for England and Wales, implying around 111,000 fewer marriages between 2012 and 2023 assuming the same estimated effects. The births estimate separately applies the fertility-rate gaps to ONS births data, implying a 2024 TFR of 1.41 instead of 1.25, equating to 67,121 fewer births in 2024, and 75,084 fewer births, on average, between 2021 to 2024.
Comparison of Finnish reforms and proposals for England and Wales
| Issue | Finland - Act on the Dissolution of the Household of Cohabiting Partners, 2011 | Proposals for England and Wales, 2026 consultation |
| Purpose | Create a statutory framework for resolving property disputes between separating cohabitants. | Create a comprehensive statutory framework for financial claims on separation and new inheritance rights on death. |
| Eligibility | Couples who had lived together for five years or had (or expected) a child together. | Couples in a long-term, committed and interdependent relationship who have cohabited for three years, or who have a child together. |
| Application | Rights applied automatically if statutory conditions were met. | Rights to apply automatically, although couples could opt-out through a qualifying agreement. |
| Property division | Property remained with its legal owner. The Act did not create marital-style sharing of assets. | Courts would be given broader powers to make financial orders following separation, although the Government proposes these should remain more limited than divorce remedies. |
| Compensation | Courts could award compensation where one partner had substantially contributed to the other’s property or to the shared household without receiving corresponding benefit. | The proposed scheme would allow financial claims based on statutory principles extending beyond simple property ownership, although it rejects applying the full matrimonial “sharing principle”. |
| Court involvement | Estate distributors (appointed by the court) could divide property if agreement could not be reached. | Family courts would determine financial claims using a new statutory framework. |
| Inheritance on death | The Act itself primarily addressed separation. Finland separately extended certain inheritance tax advantages to qualifying cohabitants, but cohabitants did not become automatic intestate heirs. | The consultation proposes that qualifying cohabitants should automatically inherit under the intestacy rules where a partner dies without a will and should gain associated rights to administer the estate. |