Wigan among top 20 places where couples live together without getting married, study reveals
They used to call it “living over the brush” - couples cohabiting without tying the knot. It seems to be more widespread in Wigan than most places
Wigan has been named among the top 20 places where couples are most likely to live together without getting married, with more than one in four partnered residents in an unmarried cohabiting relationship.
New research reveals that Wigan ranks 19th out of 59 locations studied across England, Wales and Northern Ireland, ahead of nearby Preston, Lancaster and Chester.
A ranking by Premier Carriage Wedding Cars analysed Census 2021 data to identify where unmarried cohabitation is most common among people living with a partner.
Wigan takes 19th place, with 27.96 per cent of partnered residents living together without being married or in a registered civil partnership.
The borough recorded 44,500 cohabiting residents, compared with 114,657 married or civil-partnered residents living with a partner.
That means more than one in four people living with a partner in Wigan were doing so without being legally married or civil-partnered at the time of the census.
Wigan also ranks ahead of several nearby North West locations.