Marital status, marital status transitions, and depression: does age matter?

Abstract

Most of what we currently know about the association between marital status and mental health is derived from studies that implicitly assume an ageless adult, who is affected by their marital status in the same way to the same degree throughout the adult life course. Using panel data from a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults, I evaluate the usefulness of this assumption by assessing the moderating potential of age on the association between marital status, marital status transitions, and depression, paying special attention to gender. Further, I examine the extent to which contextual factors such as economic well-being and measures of social integration and social support mediate the association between marital status and depression by age, as well as by gender. My findings indicate that the impact of marital status and marital loss on depression is moderated by age for men, but is consistent across age for women. Further, I find substantial variation in the extent to which economic well-being and social integration measures account for the association between marital status and depression across age, as well as by gender. In general, the impact of the measures of economic well-being on the association between marital status and depression is significantly greater than is the impact of the social integration and support measures, particularly for the young- and middle-aged, as well as for women. With regard to age, I find that economic well-being mediates more of the association between marital status and depression for the middle-aged than for younger and older adults, while the social integration and support measures account for more of the association between marital status and depression among young and older adults. Taken together, these results contribute to our understanding of group variation in the associations between marital status, marital status transitions, and depression.