Loved and lost or never loved at all? Lifelong marital histories and their links with subjective well-being

Mariah F. Purol; Victor N. Keller; Jeewon Oh; William J. Chopik; Richard E. Lucas

doi:10.1080/17439760.2020.1791946

Loved and lost or never loved at all? Lifelong marital histories and their links with subjective well-being

Mariah F. Purol, Victor N. Keller, Jeewon Oh, William J. Chopik, Richard E. Lucas

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

10 Scopus citations

Abstract

Marriage has been linked to higher well-being. However, previous research has generally examined marital status at one point in time or over a relatively short window of time. In order to determine if different marital histories have unique impacts on well-being in later life, we conducted a marital sequence analysis of 7,532 participants from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (54.2% women; M_age = 66.68, SD = 8.50; 68.7% White/Caucasian). Three different marital sequence types emerged: a ‘consistently-married’ group (79%), a ‘consistently-single’ group (8%), and a ‘varied histories’ group (13%), in which individuals had moved in and out of various relationships throughout life. The consistently-married group was slightly higher in well-being at the end of life than the consistently-single and varied histories groups; the latter two groups did not differ in their well-being. The results are discussed in the context of why marriage is linked to well-being across the lifespan.

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	1-9
Number of pages	9
Journal	Journal of Positive Psychology
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2020.1791946
State	Published - 2020
Externally published	Yes

Keywords

Sequence analysis
life satisfaction
lifespan approach
marital history
subjective well-being

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Psychology(all)

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10.1080/17439760.2020.1791946

Cite this

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abstract = "Marriage has been linked to higher well-being. However, previous research has generally examined marital status at one point in time or over a relatively short window of time. In order to determine if different marital histories have unique impacts on well-being in later life, we conducted a marital sequence analysis of 7,532 participants from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (54.2% women; Mage = 66.68, SD = 8.50; 68.7% White/Caucasian). Three different marital sequence types emerged: a {\textquoteleft}consistently-married{\textquoteright} group (79%), a {\textquoteleft}consistently-single{\textquoteright} group (8%), and a {\textquoteleft}varied histories{\textquoteright} group (13%), in which individuals had moved in and out of various relationships throughout life. The consistently-married group was slightly higher in well-being at the end of life than the consistently-single and varied histories groups; the latter two groups did not differ in their well-being. The results are discussed in the context of why marriage is linked to well-being across the lifespan.",

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note = "Funding Information: This study was not preregistered. This work was supported by the National Institute on Aging [P01AG029409, R01-AG051142, 2R03AG054705-01A1]. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. Portions of this research were presented at the 2020 SPSP (New Orleans, LA) Conference. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2020, {\textcopyright} 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.",

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AU - Oh, Jeewon

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AU - Lucas, Richard E.

N1 - Funding Information: This study was not preregistered. This work was supported by the National Institute on Aging [P01AG029409, R01-AG051142, 2R03AG054705-01A1]. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. Portions of this research were presented at the 2020 SPSP (New Orleans, LA) Conference. Publisher Copyright: © 2020, © 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

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Loved and lost or never loved at all? Lifelong marital histories and their links with subjective well-being

Abstract

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

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