NEW YORK (AP) - Nearly half of young US women say the first time they lived with a guy, they were not married.

That was the finding of a government survey released on Thursday.

The results are a marked changed from 1995, when only 34 per cent said they moved in together. Now it is 48 per cent. Back then, 39 per cent said they married first, compared to 23 per cent now.

Experts say the numbers show living together is increasingly used as a testing ground for marriage. About 40 per cent of the women who lived with a guy went on to marry him within 3 years.

The survey by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention questioned more than 12,000 women younger than 45 from 2006 to 2010.