Marriage Advantage in Subjective Well-Being: Causal Effect or Unmeasured Heterogeneity?

Referee Abuse, Intention to Quit, and Well-Being

There are growing levels of abuse toward match officials in sport as well as general problems of their recruitment and retention. Purpose: This study analyzes the role that physical and nonphysical abuse has on association football referees' intentions to quit and their personal well-being. Methods: Drawing on pooled survey data of association football referees from the UK and Canada, this paper employs probit, ordinary least squares, and treatment effects regression analyses to explore the casual relationship between the physical and nonphysical abuse faced by referees, their intention to quit and their well-being. Results: Although physical abuse is less common than nonphysical abuse both affect the intention to quit and well-being of officials. Moreover, those that do not contemplate quitting also face reductions in their well-being. Conclusion: The research recommends a zero-tolerance approach to all forms of abuse of officials in sport and identifies that organizations have a duty of care for the well-being of their officials.

Loneliness among single and coupled individuals in response to the COVID-19 pandemic: A cross-country analysis

Background/Objective

Research suggests that the COVID-19 pandemic has increased social isolation and loneliness and that, in general, single individuals experience a higher degree of loneliness than coupled individuals. Loneliness may also vary across cultures as a function of social norms and Hofstede's dimensions of national culture. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to examine whether the link between relationship status and loneliness in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic differed across countries as a function of cultural values captured in terms of Hofstede's six dimensions of national culture.

Method

Multilevel modeling was used to analyze the archival data collected in the COVIDiSTRESS Global Survey (41 countries and 102,957 participants) and the COVIDiSTRESS Global Survey - Round II (23 countries and 8227 participants).

Results

The analyses demonstrated the statistical significance of the interactions between relationship status and six Hofstede's dimensions of national culture in the link between relationship status and loneliness. The estimated effect sizes of these interactions were, however, almost zero.

Conclusions

The lack of effect size of the interactions between relationship status and Hofstede's dimensions of national culture for loneliness may have substantive significance. This finding implies that, on average, loneliness as a function of relationship status may be less reactive in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic to the effects of social norms and values across which countries vary.

Marital Histories and Associations With Later-Life Dementia and Mild Cognitive Impairment Risk in the HUNT4 70+ Study in Norway

Objectives: Earlier studies suggest that being married in later life protects against dementia, and that being single in old age increases the risk of dementia. In this study, we examine midlife marital status trajectories and their association with dementia and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) at ages 70 plus using a large population based sample from Norway. Methods: Based on a general population sample linked to population registries (N = 8706), we used multinomial logistic regression to examine the associations between six types of marital trajectories (unmarried, continuously divorced, intermittently divorced, widowed, continuously married, intermittently married) between age 44 and 68 years from national registries and a clinical dementia or a MCI diagnosis after age 70. We estimated relative risk ratios (RRR) and used mediation analyses adjusting for education, number of children, smoking, hypertension, obesity, physical inactivity, diabetes, mental distress, and having no close friends in midlife. Inverse probability weighting and multiple imputations were applied. The population attributable fraction was estimated to assess the potential reduction in dementia cases due to marital histories. Results: Overall, 11.6% of the participants were diagnosed with dementia and 35.3% with MCI. Dementia prevalence was lowest among the continuously married (11.2%). Adjusting for confounders, the risk of dementia was higher for the unmarried (RRR = 1.73; 95% CI: 1.24, 2.40), continuously divorced (RRR = 1.66; 95% CI: 1.14, 2.43), and intermittently divorced (RRR = 1.50; 95% CI: 1.09, 2.06) compared to the continuously married. In general, marital trajectory was less associated with MCI than with dementia. In the counterfactual scenario, where all participants had the same risk of receiving a dementia diagnosis as the continuously married group, there would be 6.0% fewer dementia cases. Discussion: Our data confirm that staying married in midlife is associated with a lower risk of dementia and that divorced people account for a substantial share of dementia cases.

Food Insecurity and Stress Among Rural Residents in South Carolina: The Moderating Influences of Household Characteristics, Neighborhood Social Environment and Food Environment

Food insecurity is linked with poor physical and mental health outcomes, including anxiety, depression and stress. Rural residents in particular face unique challenges obtaining healthy food; the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the relationship between food insecurity and mental health outcomes. This study examines the relationship between food insecurity and stress, and the moderating influence of household characteristics, neighborhood social environment and food environment on this relationship, using a sample of 630 rural South Carolina (SC) residents during COVID-19. Two measures of stress were used in this study: current levels of stress and changes in stress since COVID-19. Results showed a gradient pattern between food insecurity and stress: rural residents with high food insecurity were 6.1 times more likely and those with moderate food insecurity were 3.4 times more likely to report higher level of general stress than those with low food insecurity; rural residents with high food insecurity were 3.3 times more likely and those with moderate food insecurity were 2.0 times more likely to report greater increase in stress after COVID-19 than those with low food insecurity. Neighborhood social environment and food environment provided a buffering effect on the relationship between food insecurity and stress. A stronger social environment after COVID-19 and higher levels of easiness in food access mitigated the negative impacts of food insecurity on stress. Efforts to ameliorate food insecurity should address these broader contextual variables, involving community-level factors.

Do Personality Traits Moderate the Effects of Cohabitation, Separation, and Widowhood on Life Satisfaction? A Longitudinal Test for Germany

The start and end of a romantic relationship are associated with substantial changes in life satisfaction. Yet, whether Big Five personality traits moderate these relationship transition effects is hardly known. Such knowledge helps to understand individual variation in relationship transition effects and provides the possibility to further test the stress and social support explanations of these effects. Our fixed effects regressions on 28 waves of the German Socio-Economic Panel 1991-2018 show that Big Five traits moderate the effects of relationship transitions on life satisfaction to a limited extent. More neurotic men display a more negative effect of separation, and more neurotic and more agreeable women reveal a more negative effect of widowhood on life satisfaction. Big Five traits do not moderate the effect of the start of cohabitation on life satisfaction. Our findings support the stress perspective of relationship transition effects most and identify emotionally unstable individuals as a particularly vulnerable group.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10902-022-00573-8.

The Trajectory of Subjective Well-Being: A Partial Explanation of the Marriage Advantage

Although several studies have documented a distinct marriage advantage in well-being, it is still unclear what it is about marriage that renders this benefit. We hypothesize that it is due to factors theorized to accrue to matrimony, such as elevated financial status and specific social psychological supports. We examine the trajectory of subjective well-being for 1,135 respondents from the three-wave 2010 GSS panel survey utilizing linear mixed-effects modeling. We find that about two-fifths of the marriage advantage in subjective well-being is accounted for by a mixture of control variables, finances, and emotional factors, with most of this due to elements that are associated with the marital context. Higher annual income, enhanced interpersonal trust, greater sociability, and less of a sense of loneliness and isolation appear to be responsible for a substantial component of the marital advantage. We further find that the marriage advantage is invariant to both race and gender.

Behavior in childhood is associated with romantic partnering patterns in adulthood

BACKGROUND

Most people will partner at some point during their lives. Yet little is known about the association between childhood behavior and patterns of long-term romantic partnering in adulthood.

METHODS

In this population-based cohort study, behavioral ratings were prospectively obtained from teachers when children (n = 2,960) were aged 10-12 years - for inattention, hyperactivity, aggression-opposition, anxiety, and prosociality - and linked to their tax return records from age 18 to 35 years (1998-2015). We used group-based based trajectory modeling to estimate the probability of partnership (marriage/cohabitation) over time and multinomial logistic regression models to examine the association between childhood behavior and trajectory group membership. The child's sex and family socioeconomic background were adjusted for.

RESULTS

Five distinct trajectories of partnering were identified: early-partnered (n = 420, 14.4%), mid-partnered (n = 620, 21.3%), late-partnered (n = 570, 19.2%), early-partnered-separated (n = 460, 15.5%), and delayed-or-unpartnered (n = 890, 30.0%). Participants in the early-partnered-separated and delayed-or-unpartnered trajectories were more likely to have left high school without a diploma and to have lower earnings and higher welfare receipt from age 18 to 35 years. After adjustment for sex and family background, inattention and aggression-opposition were uniquely and additively associated with increased likelihood of following an early-partnered-separated trajectory, while inattention and anxiety were associated with an increased likelihood of following a delayed-or-unpartnered trajectory. Childhood prosocial behaviors were consistently associated with earlier and more sustained patterns of partnership.

CONCLUSIONS

Children with behavioral problems are more likely to separate or to be unpartnered across early adulthood. This may have consequences for their psychological health and wellbeing and that of their families.

The Role of Relationship Status in Major Depressive Disorder - Results of the European Group for the Study of Resistant Depression

BACKGROUND

While the association between relationship status and the development of depressive symptoms in the general population were reported previously, its relation to the severity and the course of major depressive disorder (MDD) as well as the treatment patterns and response rates needs to be elucidated.

METHODS

The present international multicenter cross-sectional study performed by the European Group for the Study of Resistant Depression (GSRD) investigated socio-demographic and clinical patterns of relationship status in a real-world sample of 1410 adult in- and outpatients with MDD as primary diagnosis.

RESULTS

While 49.9% of all MDD patients were partnered, 25.4% were separated, and 24.8% were single. Single relationship status was linked to younger mean age, earlier mean age of onset, and current suicidal risk. Being separated was related to older mean age, unemployment, greater symptom severity, current suicidal risk, and add-on treatment strategies. Partnered relationship status was associated with less frequent current suicidal risk.

LIMITATIONS

The retrospective assessment of treatment response that was exclusively based on psychopharmacotherapeutic strategies should be critically considered and weighed while interpreting the present results providing novel insights into the complex interaction of relationship status with the clinical phenotype of MDD.

CONCLUSIONS

Although MDD patients living in relationships do not seem to be omitted from the evolution of MDD, they may be spared from chronicity and suicidality. Hence, being aware of the current relationship status might support clinicians in the diagnostic and therapeutic process towards optimized management of such challenging clinical phenomena and their negative consequences.

The Psychological Benefits of Marriage and Children in Rural Malawi

Despite an extensive literature on the psychological rewards of marriage and children in high-income countries, research on these relationships in low-income countries remains limited. This paper draws on data from 4,133 adult women and men interviewed in the Malawi Longitudinal Study of Families and Health to examine how marital status, categorized as never, formerly, monogamously, and polygynously married, and number of children are associated with psychological well-being. With respect to marital status, we find that women in polygynous unions fare worse than monogamously married women and this detrimental effect is stronger for women than for men. Formerly married men and women of reproductive age experience the worst psychological outcomes, although this association wanes with age. In contrast, the benefits of having children is only evident among older Malawian women. These findings offer novel insights into the patterns of nearly universal marriage and high fertility that characterize Malawi and much of sub-Saharan Africa.