MINNEAPOLIS — The playground taunt about ‘sittin’ in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g’ spells out the conventions of adulthood: ‘First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes a baby in a baby carriage.’

That may be changing.

Fewer middle-class women follow what one study calls the ‘success sequence’ of education, work, marriage and childbearing. They may get married, but only later, and not have children. Increasingly, they are having children, but postponing the wedding.

The recession’s financial stresses did nothing to slow the trend. If anything, the retreat from marriage is spreading from the least affluent Americans ‘into the solid middle of the middle class,’ according to the 2010 study, ‘When Marriage Disappears,’ by the National Marriage Project, at the University of Virginia.

Becca Bijoch, 25, feels no societal pressure to marry. ‘I think it’s definitely different than it’s ever been before, probably even in the past 10 years,’ said Bijoch, who works for a public relations firm in Minneapolis.

‘Not feeling that pressure gives me the opportunity to focus on my career and have more great life experiences I might not be able to have if I was in a serious relationship.’

It isn’t just young women who are wary that plunging into marriage could derail careers […]