Re-evaluating the link between marriage and mental well-being: how do early life conditions attenuate differences between cohabitation and marriage?
Re-evaluating the link between marriage and mental well-being: how do early life conditions attenuate differences between cohabitation and marriage?
The decline in marriage and increase in cohabitation raises questions about whether marriage still provides benefits to well-being. Here we use the British Cohort Study 1970 (N=7203), a prospective survey following respondents to age 42, to examine whether partnerships in general, and marriage in particular, provide benefits to mental well-being in mid-life. We use propensity score matching to investigate whether childhood characteristics are a sufficient source of selection to eliminate differences in well-being between different partnership types. We find that matching on childhood characteristics does not eliminate advantages to living with a partner. However, the type of partnership does not matter; among those less likely to marry, marriage provides no benefits to wellbeing beyond cohabitation. The sources of childhood selection seem to differ by gender: matching on educational plans and scores tends to eliminate differences for women, while adolescent mental well-being eliminates many differences between cohabitation and marriage for men.
University of Southampton
Perelli-Harris, Brienna
9d3d6b25-d710-480b-8677-534d58ebe9ed
Styrc, Marta
52dfef8b-7d07-49e8-b84f-43efa9464709
McGowan, Teresa
4524e894-04de-4822-8508-f4b966e12ae2
3 February 2016
Perelli-Harris, Brienna
9d3d6b25-d710-480b-8677-534d58ebe9ed
Styrc, Marta
52dfef8b-7d07-49e8-b84f-43efa9464709
McGowan, Teresa
4524e894-04de-4822-8508-f4b966e12ae2
Perelli-Harris, Brienna and Styrc, Marta
,
McGowan, Teresa
(ed.)
(2016)
Re-evaluating the link between marriage and mental well-being: how do early life conditions attenuate differences between cohabitation and marriage?
(ESRC Centre for Population Change Working Papers, 75)
Southampton, GB.
University of Southampton
30pp.
Record type:
Monograph
(Working Paper)
Abstract
The decline in marriage and increase in cohabitation raises questions about whether marriage still provides benefits to well-being. Here we use the British Cohort Study 1970 (N=7203), a prospective survey following respondents to age 42, to examine whether partnerships in general, and marriage in particular, provide benefits to mental well-being in mid-life. We use propensity score matching to investigate whether childhood characteristics are a sufficient source of selection to eliminate differences in well-being between different partnership types. We find that matching on childhood characteristics does not eliminate advantages to living with a partner. However, the type of partnership does not matter; among those less likely to marry, marriage provides no benefits to wellbeing beyond cohabitation. The sources of childhood selection seem to differ by gender: matching on educational plans and scores tends to eliminate differences for women, while adolescent mental well-being eliminates many differences between cohabitation and marriage for men.
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2016_WP75_Re-evaluating_the_link_between_marriage_and_mental_wellbeing.pdf
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Published date: 3 February 2016
Organisations:
Social Statistics & Demography, Centre for Population Change
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 386841
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/386841
ISSN: 2042-4116
PURE UUID: ad119c1e-f4f6-465a-9340-3e45066d2052
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Date deposited: 03 Feb 2016 11:39
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 03:38
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Author:
Marta Styrc
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