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In this paper, we examine whether people "s beliefs about the permanence, desirability, and importance of marriage moderate the impact of marital transitions-including marital losses and gains--on depression, a disorder associated with both marital status and role transitions. Using two waves of panel data from the National Survey of Families and Households (N = 10,005), we find that a marital loss results in increased symptoms, whereas a marital gain results in decreased symptoms. We also find, however, that the negative effects of a marital loss are greater for people who believe in the permanence of marriage than they are for those who do not. Conversely, the positive effects of a marital gain are greater for people who believe in the desirability and importance of marriage than they are for those who do not. Our results highlight the potential utility of more systematically incorporating people's beliefs--and sociocultural factors more generally--into theory and research on the impact of stressors on mental health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between marriage and positive mental health is one of the most established findings in the stress literature. Few studies, however, examine the problematic as well as the supportive impacts of marriage on mental health. This paper uses a cohort of young adults who were sampled at 18, 21, or 24 years of age and resampled seven years later when they were married at 25, 28, or 31. It examines what factors are associated with the quality of marital relationships, the relative impact of and balance between negative and positive partner relationships on mental health, and sex differences in the determinants and outcomes of marital quality. The results indicate that the structural strains of parenthood and financial need and their interaction predict problematic and supportive spousal relationships and the difference in the levels of these two relationships. Problematic relationships with spouses have considerably stronger impacts than supportive relationships on depression. However, the difference between the amounts of supportive and problematic relationships with spouses has a greater impact on mental health than levels of either considered separately. Finally, relational quality has a greater impact on the mental health of wives than husbands. These findings indicate the importance of considering how marriage affects mental health in complex, rather than in straightforward, ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While studies of psychopathology have begun to consider social consequences of psychiatric disorders during the past decade, marriage has received little attention, despite evidence that it influences life quality. The present paper examines the effects of clinically significant psychiatric disorders on the probability and timing of first marriage and whether the relationships between psychiatric disorders and marriage differ by type of disorder, gender, and birth cohort. Psychiatric disorders are found to have substantial effects on entry into first marriage. These effects are the same for men and women across all cohorts. Individual psychiatric disorders have similar effects on entry into first marriage. Psychiatric disorders are positively associated with early first marriage, which is strongly related to adverse consequences, and negatively associated with on-time and late first marriage, which are related to benefits such as financial security and social support. These results highlight the importance of early interventions for psychiatric disorders--if not for the purposes of primary prevention, then for the purposes of preventing the cumulation of adversities that occur secondarily through early marriage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines race differences in the effects of social roles on physical health. Using data from the older men cohort of the National Longitudinal Surveys of Labor Market Experience, we examine the impact of employment, marriage, and being a supporter on health limitations and mortality. Employment has the most consistent health-protective effect, and the benefits of employment are more pronounced for Blacks than for Whites. Marriage affects health in conjunction with employment. These findings lend further support to the growing literature on the effects of roles on health. The results further illustrate the importance of ascribed statuses as structural determinants of the relationship between roles and health, highlighting the very real differences in the meanings and expectations of social roles for Blacks and Whites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines three questions regarding the relationship between marriage and mental health, specifically depression and alcohol problems. First, does marriage lead to improved mental health compared to never marrying? Second, do any mental health benefits of marriage primarily accrue to men? Third, what qualitative aspects of marriage are related to psychological disorder? We explore these questions in a longitudinal sample of young adults sampled at age 21 and again at age 24. We find no indication that marriage reduces depression. Married people do report fewer alcohol problems than the never-married but this could be due to the selection of less problematic drinkers into marriage. We also fail to find that men receive disproportionate mental health benefits from marriage. Finally, we find that marital conflict is associated with problem drinking for men and depression for women. The results indicate the importance of considering stage in the life cycle and gender-sensitive indicators of psychological disorder in studies of marriage and mental health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociological researchers have tended to deemphasize the degree to which people are conscious, active agents in their own lives, focusing instead on factors which promote vulnerability to stress. But people are often motivated to act deliberately to resolve both acute and chronic role-related stressors. Thus, the relationship between stress experiences and negative psychological outcomes may be attributable primarily to stressors which individuals are unable to resolve. Using panel data on 532 married and divorced respondents in Indianapolis, I illustrate the effects of solved and unsolved problems (in the domains of work and love/marriage) on changes in psychological distress and substance use. People who failed to solve their job or love problems had more psychological symptoms, while the symptoms of successful problem-solvers did not differ from those of individuals whose situations were nonproblematic. Further exploratory analyses showed that the personality characteristics of mastery and self-esteem served to select individuals into--and out of--stressful circumstances, and that individuals were affected by the outcomes of problem-solving efforts in the work domain, or by attempts to solve problems in the love/marriage domain. These illustrative findings suggest that it can be theoretically and empirically fruitful to view individuals as agents making and shaping their lives, rather than primarily as passive subjects overwhelmed by situational stress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ample work stresses the interdependence of spouses' psychological distress and that women are more influenced by their spouse's distress than men. Yet previous studies have focused primarily on heterosexual couples, raising questions about whether and how this gendered pattern might unfold for men and women in same-sex marriages. We analyze 10 days of diary data from a purposive sample of men and women in same-sex and different-sex marriages ( n = 756 individuals from 378 couples) to examine psychological distress transmission between spouses and how this process may differ for men and women in same-sex and different-sex marriages. We find that women are more strongly influenced by their partners' distress than men, regardless of whether they are married to a man or a woman, and that this relationship is particularly strong for women with male spouses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The health consequences of marital dissolution are well known, but little work has examined the impact of health on the risk of marital dissolution. We use a sample of 2,701 marriages from the Health and Retirement Study to examine the role of serious physical illness onset in subsequent marital dissolution via either divorce or widowhood. We use a series of discrete time event history models with competing risks to estimate the impact of husband’s and wife’s physical illness onset on risk of divorce and widowhood. We find that only measures of wife’s illness onset are associated with elevated risk of divorce, while measures of either spouse’s illness onset is associated with elevated risk of widowhood. Further, in the case of heart problems, we find that this gender difference is statistically significant. These findings suggest health as a determinant of marital dissolution in later life via both biological and gendered social pathways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sleep is a restorative behavior essential for health. Poor sleep has been linked to adverse health outcomes among older adults; however, we know little about the social processes that affect sleep. Using innovative actigraphy data from the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project (N = 727), we considered the role of marriage, positive marital relationship support, and negative marital relationship strain on older adults’ (ages 62–90) self-reported and actigraph-measured sleep characteristics. We found that married older adults had better actigraph-estimated but not self-reported sleep characteristics than the unmarried. However, among the married, those who reported more negative aspects of their marital relationship reported more insomnia symptoms, with the association reduced when psychosocial characteristics were added to the model. The married who reported more positive aspects of their marital relationship showed better actigraph-estimated sleep characteristics; taking characteristics of the physical and mental health and home environment into account reduced this association. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study we consider the health implications of the sequencing of a college degree vis-à-vis familial roles during the transition to adulthood. We hypothesize that people who earned a college degree before assuming familial roles will have better health than people who earned a college degree afterwards. To test this hypothesis, we focus on obesity and use data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Results show that marriage before completion of college was associated with a 50% higher probability of becoming obese when compared with marriage after completion of college. Parenthood before college completion was associated with a greater than twofold increase in the probability of becoming obese when compared to parenthood afterwards for black men. These findings suggest that the well-established association of education with health depends on its place in a sequence of roles. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Social engagement is theorized to promote health, with ages 55 to 75—what some call “encore” adulthood—potentially being a time for ongoing engagement or social isolation. We use the American Time Use Survey (N = 11,952) and a life course perspective to examine associations between paid work, resources, relations, and healthy time use for men and women in the first (55–64) and second (65–74) halves of the encore years. Work limits sufficient sleep (full-time working men) and television watching (all workers) but also time spent in physical activity (full-time workers). College-educated and healthy encore adults—across age and gender divides—are more likely to exercise and watch less television. Marriage and caregiving encourage socializing and limit television watching, despite differential effects on physical activity and sleep. These findings fit well with a gendered life course perspective suggesting socially patterned (by work, resources, relationships, gender, age) health behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This comment focuses on the September 1976 article "Marital Role, Education, and Mental Disorder Among Women: Test of an Interaction Hypothesis," which illustrates several fundamental issues in current epidemiologic research on mental illness. The rationale for the study apparently arises from a basic error of fact. The authors' basic premise that women have higher rates of mental disorder than men is not acceptable. The second observation relates to the omnipresent problem of case identification in psychiatric epidemiology. They use the 22-item index developed by Langner to estimate prevalence of psychiatric impairment, but of the numerous psychiatric screening instruments, this particular one may be the least desirable.

Despite the proliferation of studies documenting the relationship between physical limitation and depressive symptoms in the United States, we currently do not know (1) whether physical impairment is associated with other dimensions of emotional well-being and (2) if these associations differ for men and women as well as married and nonmarried adults. We use panel data from two national samples to examine gender and marital status variations in the impact of physical limitation on four indicators of mental health. We find that physical limitation is associated with increases in depressive symptoms and negative feelings as well as decreases in positive emotions. Although the patterns are complex, we also find gender and marital status differences in these associations. Our results provide additional support for Aneshensel’s (1992; Aneshensel, Rutter, and Lachenbruch 1991) argument about the highly contingent nature of stress reactivity and contribute to theory about both gender and marital status differences in the impact of stress on mental health. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Extensive research documents the relevance of families and socioeconomic resources to health. This article extends that research to sexual minorities, using 12 years of the National Health Interview Survey (N = 460,459) to examine self-evaluations of health among male and female adults living in same-sex and different-sex relationships. Adjusting for socioeconomic status eliminates differences between same- and different-sex cohabitors so that they have similarly higher odds of poor health relative to married persons. Results by gender reveal that the cohabitation disadvantage for health is more pronounced for different-sex cohabiting women than for men, but little difference exists between same-sex cohabiting men and women. Finally, the presence of children in the home is more protective for women’s than men’s health, but those protections are specific to married women. In all, the results elucidate the importance of relationship type, gender, and the presence of children when evaluating health. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Although the meanings and rates of being married, divorced, separated, never-married, and widowed have changed significantly over the past several decades, we know very little about historical trends in the relationship between marital status and health. Our analysis of pooled data from the National Health Interview Survey from 1972 to 2003 shows that the self-rated health of the never-married has improved over the past three decades. Moreover, the gap between the married and the never married has steadily converged over time for men but not for women. In contrast, the self-rated health of the widowed, divorced, and separated worsened over time relative to the married, and the adverse effects of marital dissolution have increased more for women than for men. Our findings highlight the importance of social change in shaping the impact of marital status on self-reported health and challenge long-held assumptions about gender, marital status, and health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Past research has consistently documented the positive relationship between a transition to marriage and psychological well-being. In this study, we separate the depressed from the nondepressed to assess whether the benefits marriage has for psychological well-being depend on premarital depression. We also examine whether the effect of marital quality in moderating the psychological consequences of marriage differs for the depressed and the nondepressed. Results indicate that, on average, those who were depressed prior to marrying report larger psychological gains from marriage than those who were not depressed. The role of marital quality in moderating the effect of marriage on psychological well-being is similar for previously depressed and previously nondepressed respondents. These findings call into question the assumption that marriage is always a good choice for all individuals. What appear to be strong average benefits of marriage are actually highly dependent on a range of individual, interpersonal, and structural characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Martial status is a key determinant of psychological well-being. I use data from both waves of the National Survey of Families and Households to evaluate the effect of union type (i.e., cohabitation versus marriage) on depression. Cohabitors report higher levels of depression than their married counterparts, net of sociodemographic factors. The greater depression characterizing cohabitors is primarily due to their higher relationship instability relative to marrieds. Cohabitors' reports of relationship instability are about 25 percent higher than marrieds' reports. High levels of relationship instability are especially detrimental for cohabitors who have been in their union for a long period of time. Additionally, cohabitors' depression scores are exacerbated by the presence of biological and step children, whereas marrieds' depression scores are impervious to children. Longitudinal analyses that correct for selection bias confirm that the lower levels of well-being characterizing cohabitors are not due to the types of people who choose to cohabit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous scholars' attempts to account for the salutary effects of social roles (i.e., employment, marriage, and parenting) on distress have considered the mediating effects of role-specific identity meaning. These attempts, however, have had limited success. I argue that social roles affect distress because they provide a global integrative meaning and that this integrative concept of meaning is theoretically different from role-specific identity meaning. My data were drawn from a national probability sample of 2,248 respondents age 18 years and over. My results provide substantial evidence that social roles have a salutary relationship on distress and that integrative meaning mediates these effects. The effects of the marriage and parenting roles on distress are the most affected by the mediating effects of integrative meaning. My discussion addresses these findings in light of recent research which considers other theoretically important and potentially related constructs such as role-specific identity meaning, global self-esteem and role-specific self-esteem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our study tests several hypotheses concerning the effects of employment, marriage, and motherhood on women's general physical health. These hypotheses predict how the health effect of each role varies, depending on specific role characteristics and the other roles a woman holds. Our analyses utilize longitudinal panel data for 3,331 women from the National Longitudinal Surveys of Young Women (follow-up intervals: 1978-83 and 1983-88). The Role Substitution Hypothesis proposes that employment and marriage provide similar resources (e.g., income and social support), and, consequently, employment and marriage can substitute for each other in their beneficial effects on health. As predicted, we found that employment had beneficial effects on health for unmarried women, but little or no effect for married women. Similarly, marriage had beneficial effects on health only for women who were not employed. The Role Combination Strain Hypothesis proposes that employed mothers experience role strain, resulting in harmful effects on health. However, we found very little evidence that the combination of employment and motherhood resulted in harmful health effects. Contrary to the predictions of the Quantitative Demands Role Strain Hypothesis, it appears that neither longer hours of employment nor having more children resulted in harmful effects on health. As predicted by the Age-Related Parental Role Strain Hypothesis, younger age at first birth, particularly a teenage birth, appeared to result in more harmful health effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data gathered prospectively, the authors examined whether transitions in two major adult social roles, marriage and parenthood, influence the risk of developing (1) DSM-III-R alcohol disorder and (2) symptoms of alcohol disorder. Additionally, the potential impact of these transitions on persistence of alcohol disorder was examined. In the study, 1,007 members (21 to 30 years old) of a large health maintenance organization located in southeast Michigan were interviewed initially in 1989, 979 of whom were reinterviewed in 1992. Incidence of alcohol disorder symptoms was significantly higher among those who remained single (RR = 2.1) or became divorced (RR = 6.0) during the follow-up period, compared to those getting or staying married. Those who were never parents through the follow-up were also at increased risk (RR = 2.5), relative to those who became parents for the first time. Similar results were obtained for the incidence and persistence of an alcohol disorder. Transitions into adult roles, such as marriage and parenthood, appear to reduce the risk of developing alcohol disorder or related symptom~ in young adulthood. These transitions also reduce the likelihood that an existing alcohol disorder will persist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The extent to which marital disruption causes poor mental health is not well characterized even after 20 years of research. This is due in large part to the fact that previous research has ignored the possibility of selection. The present analysis is based on a representative community sample and was designed to take a step toward correcting these problems and to explore a number of specifications overlooked in previous research. The aggregate results show that marital disruption is associated with an increase of approximately one-third of a standard deviation on a screening scale of depression over a three-year interval between waves of data collection. The effect is more pronounced among women than men and is confined to people other than those who are escaping marriages with serious long-term problems. No evidence is found that the depressogenic effect of marital disruption can be explained by increased financial pressures or other secondary changes in roles. However, increased emotional reactivity to these changes is shown to play a powerful role in promoting depression among the recently divorced. The implications and limitations of these results are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Age-adjusted mortality rates are higher for the unmarried and nonparents than for the married and parents. The effects of marital and parental status on mortality are usually attributed to the positive effects of social integration or social support. The mechanisms by which social support or integration is linked to health outcomes, however, remain largely unexplored. One mechanism may involve health behaviors; the family relationships of marriage and parenting may provide external regulation and facilitate self-regulation of health behaviors which can affect health. The present study employs a national sample to examine the relationships of marital and parenting status to a variety of health behaviors. Results indicate that marriage and presence of children in the home have a deterrent effect on negative health behaviors. It is suggested, within the theoretical framework of social integration, that family roles promote social control of health behaviors which affect subsequent mortality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Widowhood has been widely recognized as one of the most stressful events in the life course of married persons. This study utilizes panel data from a national sample of the low-income aged to examine the effect of this form of role loss on the health and friendship support of older people. The use of a structural equation model reveals that those recently widowed negatively changed the evaluation of their health to a greater extent than those widowed for longer periods of time. The analysis of change in friendship support among the respondents indicates that those widowed between one and four years are more likely to increase their involvement in friendship than people widowed between measurements or those widowed more than four years. A multi-group LISREL analysis of the married and widowed respondents is used to examine if the causal processes affecting health and friendship support differ for married and widowed older adults. The findings emphasize the importance of considering the temporal dynamics of adjustment to stressful life events and favor a compensation model of role loss and social integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A survey of Detroit adults shows that employment, marriage, and parenthood are associated with good physical health for both women and men. Employed married parents tend to have the best health profile, while people with none of these roles tend to have the worst profile. Of the three roles, employment has the strongest effect, and parenthood the weakest. Multiple roles (the combination of job plus family responsibilities) have no special effects on health, either negative or positive. Thus, people with both job and family roles enjoy the health benefits of each role (main effects)and incur no special health disadvantage or benefit (interaction effect) for being so busy. This is true for both women and men. Three explanations are considered: First, health risks may actually be lower for socially active people than for nonactive ones. Second, involved people may have health attitudes which reduce their sensitivity to symptoms and their willingness to take curative health actions. Third, social selection may operate so that healthy people are able to acquire and keep roles more easily than unhealthy people. In sum, there is no evidence in the Detroit data that combining employment, marriage, and parenthood is harmful to women's health. Implications of the results for women's future health are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coping refers to behavior that protects people from being psychologically harmed by problematic social experience, a behavior that importantly mediates the impact that societies have on their members. The protective function of coping behavior can be exercised in three ways: by eliminating or modifying conditions giving rise to problems; by perceptually controlling the meaning of experience in a manner that neutralizes its problematic character; and by keeping the emotional consequences of problems within manageable bounds. The efficacy of a number of concrete coping behaviors representing these three functions was evaluated. Results indicate that individuals' coping interventions are most effective when dealing with problems within the close interpersonal role areas of marriage and child-rearing and least effective when dealing with the more impersonal problems found in occupation. The effective coping modes are unequally distributed in society, with men, the educated, and the affluent making greater use of the efficacious mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]