Longitudinal Changes in Relationship Status, Loneliness and Life Satisfaction

Yuh-Huey Jou, Academia Sinica

There are two main explanation theories for the impact of relationship status on well-being, one is social causation, and the other is social selection explanation. This study will test the applicability of these two explanations by distinguishing different relationship statuses, examining the impact of relationship status and its changes on people's life and family satisfaction, and the moderating role of loneliness among them. The data was derived from a panel survey conducted by the Taiwan PSFD in 2020 and 2022. According to changes in relationship status, the respondents were divided into five groups: continuously married (CM, N=1980), continuously separated/divorced/widowed (CD, N=164), continuously single (CS, N=1574), single becoming married (SM, N=160), and married becoming separated/ divorced/widowed (MD, N=57). After controlling the scores in 2020, the loneliness increased and the life and family satisfaction decreased in the CS and MD groups compared with the CM group. Especially, those who were continuously single and had high levels of emotional loneliness experienced the greatest decline in life satisfaction. This suggests that loneliness due to a lack of close partners is highly detrimental to life satisfaction. Finally, the benefits of marriage, the psychological burden of being single, and future research directions were discussed.

Keywords: Families, Unions and Households, Longitudinal studies , Health and Morbidity, Gender Dynamics

See paper.