Health & Science
Single and Happy During the Holidays
A new study shows that singletons might be just as psychologically well-off as married people.
The holidays can be agonizing if you’re single and most of your friends and family are happily married. Whether you chose your status or not, it’s not easy when your family asks when you’re going to settle down or if they stop asking altogether. Don’t let them get to you: According to a new study, people over 40 who have never married could be just as psychologically resilient as their hitched peers. The finding challenges the reams of studies that conclude marriage is best for your health. And so it’s welcome news for the growing demographic of singletons who want recognition that they’re OK, too.
A team of psychologists from Lafayette College and the University of Miami mined data from the National Survey of Midlife Development to look at how more than 1,400 heterosexual married people and 100 never-married people ages 40 to 74 said they cope with life’s challenges. In their findings, published in November in The Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, both the married and the single groups appeared to have similar levels of “psychological resources,” such as personal mastery, agency, and self-sufficiency, which predict a person’s general well-being and help ward off depression.
A major problem with earlier studies of single people is that they are often lumped in with the widowed or the divorced. According to Richard Lucas, associate professor of psychology at Michigan State, divorced people in particular have lower levels of well-being than the never-married. The authors of the November study tried to separate the never-married from the divorced by selecting single people over 40, since U.S. Census figures show that the majority of people who marry do so by age 39. According to another recent study, divorced middle-aged women–even those who remarried–were 60 percent more likely to suffer from cardiovascular disease than their peers who stayed together. Lucas says other research shows that widowed people generally fare better, since they eventually adapt to life without their spouses. They all paled in comparison with married folk, who, according to study after study, had the best physical and mental health of all.
Studies may pump up the benefits of marriage by emphasizing values that are essential to the institution, like dependency, sharing, and belonging. These virtues might not be front and center in single living. Which may be one of the reasons other studies have concluded that never-married people are lonelier and less satisfied. Indeed, the November study also found that single people had slightly less positive moods and less community and family support than the married respondents. However, the researchers didn’t assume the singles were necessarily worse off. “When single people feel control over their lives and can rely on themselves, they can have especially high levels of happiness,” explains Jamila Bookwala, lead author and associate professor of psychology at Lafayette. She adds that the married people in her study who reported being highly self-sufficient weren’t happy about it, whereas single people on average felt relatively good about carrying their own weight.
Do unmarried men and women love that independence with equal verve? That’s not clear from the research thus far, since the group of singles studied was too small to explore gender differences. A 41-year-old Hugh Grant-wannabe bachelor might have a different perspective than a marriage-minded woman the same age who resignedly signs up for another month of Match.com. (Census figures from 1996, the latest available, show she still has about a four in 10 chance of eventually tying the knot, contrary to Newsweek’s shameful claim in 1986 that a 40-year-old single woman was “more likely to be killed by a terrorist” than to ever marry. Her chances are even higher today, one Census worker speculates.)
Sarah Elizabeth Richards is the author of Motherhood Rescheduled: Five Women, Five Quests to Stop the Biological Clock to be published in summer 2010. Get the latest by joining the mailing list at www.motherhoodrescheduled.com.
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Comments
@mustreallyweighin- I don't
By: buggie | Wed, 01/06/2010 - 18:58
@mustreallyweighin-
I don't think you are correct at all. I have almost always been single for the holidays, and it doesn't bother me at all. It's who I am, so why should it be fine one day and not the next? I see the holidays as family time, not romance time, and my family certainly doesn't want to see me any less just because I'm single.
Logic
By: mustireallyweighin | Mon, 12/28/2009 - 13:56
I always find these "studies" amusing. You know how many happy single people I know who love the holidays? Zero. Every single one hates Christmas, New Years, Valentine's day and a dozen others for all the classic reasons (faced with happy couples, go home alone etc..etc...)
On an average Tuesday, they may be happier than married people but on holidays? Give me a break. Nothing says "you're life is missing something" than watching all your friends and relatives happily doing holiday stuff while you're the 5th wheel.
If you're generally happy
By: dougcachet | Mon, 12/28/2009 - 13:53
If you're generally happy when you're single, you'll most likely be happy if & when you do get married. But, in this very frequent situation, it's NOT THE MARRIAGE CAUSING YOU'RE HAPPINESS, IT'S YOU. If you're generally not happy when you're single, don't count on getting married to make you happy. There are just so many things that have a big impact on our happiness -- our friends, our attitudes/personality, our jobs/things we have a passion for, things out of our control like often our health and marriage is just one of these things. Signed, a relatively happy married guy with 2 young children
To twobeef: you raise a thought provoking question at the end. I agree the article is misleading, even flawed, in that it focuses on married people over 40. This means, as a 37 year old married guy, my opinion wouldn't have counted in this survey or, perhaps, it means I'll be happier in 3 years :).
well it's about time this
By: buggie | Mon, 12/28/2009 - 12:45
well it's about time this study was done, but it seems to have been done by Captain Obvious. Of course single people are "just as well off" as married people. In fact, I can't see how we aren't *better* off psychologically. There's something to be said for a life of taking care of business for yourself, for not having to please someone else, for not being dependent on someone else, for not being nagged, for not having someone around to argue with all the time. On top of all that, you get a diversified pool of social resources rather than the one person you seem to spend all your time with once you get married. I don't know, but being single has been a pretty good deal for me. I'm not saying that marriage couldn't be just as good, but it's so weird how our entire culture bases everything around one little aspect of life. People's worth and "normalness" are judged by marital status. You could cure cancer, but if you're not married, there's something "wrong" with you.
There's an old saying ...
By: mandycat | Mon, 12/28/2009 - 11:56
.. that marriage is like a beseiged castle. Everyone who's in wants to get out and everyone who's out wants to get in.
Seems self-selecting
By: twobeef | Fri, 12/25/2009 - 12:56
@dougcachet: If married people are so happy, why do half of them get divorced ? Marriage is great, as long as you're okay with having no money & no time.
That does seem like kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy, doesn't it? If you only select people who have gotten married and managed to stay together, that indicates a greater chance for people who were able to work out problems between themselves, who had solid enough personalities that people actually wanted to stay with them for decades. Whereas a list of divorcees is more likely to have people who couldn't reconcile their differences, perhaps who got married for more superficial reasons. Doesn't a list of people who stayed married until they were 40 imply more psychological stability than a list of people who ended up divorced, just on the face of it?
I wonder, if you took all of the people who stayed married and all of the people who had been divorced and lumped them all into the same group - the group of people that got married at some point in their lives - would the never-married group be more or less stable than that greater whole?
Shoddy.
By: Mark | Wed, 12/23/2009 - 16:40
A paper that indicates never-married individuals are worse off that married individuals in all categories other than psychological resources is a challenge to other studies...?
Even the abstract clearly states that never-married people did not perform as well as married adults in regards to social resources and affective well-being. It appears that the conclusion merely states that psychological resources play a "differential role in shaping negative affect between never-married and married individuals." Given that the study only looked at those over the age of 40 that never were married and those over the age of 40 that are married, it doesn’t seem too far-fetched to assume both categorizes have adapted to their situations. Not exactly earthshaking.
This article is really just dribble, even so. You cherrypick certain phrases, paraphrase others, and quibble over research when you don’t like the categories, terms, or results. Just because a preponderance of studies indicate that a successful marriage provides some tangible social, economic, and psychological benefits does not mean choosing to stay single is the “wrong” choice.
You really need to understand that there is a big difference between fighting social stigmas associated with choosing to be single and trying vainly to equalize the outcome of all social choices.
If married people are so
By: dougcachet | Wed, 12/23/2009 - 13:06
If married people are so happy, why do half of them get divorced ? Marriage is great, as long as you're okay with having no money & no time.