ArticleDemography2019
Mind the "Happiness" Gap: The Relationship Between Cohabitation, Marriage, and Subjective Well-being in the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, and Norway.
Article in Demography, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed.
- Marriage, Wealth, and the Spread of Cohabitation in Canada.The British journal of sociology · 2026Article
- Mapping Life Satisfaction Over the First Years of Cohabitation Among Former Singles Living Alone in UK and Germany.Journal of personality · 2026Article
- Fathers' and Mothers' support needs and support experiences after rapid genome sequencing.European journal of human genetics : EJHG · 2026Article
- A national study of sex and mental health considerations among provincial and territorial correctional workers in Canada.Discover mental health · 2025Article
- Patterns of Singlehood, Cohabitation, and Marriage in Early Adulthood in Relation to Well-being in Established Adulthood.Research in human development · 2024Article
- Marital status and all-cause mortality rate in older adults: a population-based prospective cohort study.BMC geriatrics · 2023Article
- Social and economic difficulties of patients with food intolerances.Postepy dermatologii i alergologii · 2023Article
- The Trajectory of Subjective Well-Being: A Partial Explanation of the Marriage Advantage.Journal of family issues · 2022Article
- The relationship between gender, marital status and depression among Chinese middle-aged and older people: Mediation by subjective well-being and moderation by degree of digitization.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Article
- Relationship between Children's Intergenerational Emotional Support and Subjective Well-Being among Middle-Aged and Elderly People in China: The Mediation Role of the Sense of Social Fairness.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Article
- The unequal consequences of family structures for infant health.Social science research · 2021Article
- Loved and lost or never loved at all? Lifelong marital histories and their links with subjective well-being.The journal of positive psychology · 2021Article
- Cohabitation, Relationship Stability, Relationship Adjustment, and Children's Mental Health Over 10 Years.Frontiers in psychology · 2021Article
- My Home is my Castle? The Role of Living Arrangements on Experiencing the COVID-19 Pandemic: Evidence From Germany.Frontiers in sociology · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Many studies have found that married people have higher subjective well-being than those who are not married. Yet the increase in cohabitation raises questions as to whether only marriage has beneficial effects. In this study, we examine differences in subjective well-being between cohabiting and married men and women in midlife, comparing the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, and Norway. We apply propensity score-weighted regression analyses to examine selection processes into marriage and differential treatment bias. We find no differences between cohabitation and marriage for men in the United Kingdom and Norway, and women in Germany. However, we do find significant differences for men in Australia and women in Norway. The differences disappear after we control for selection in Australia, but they unexpectedly persist for Norwegian women, disappearing only when we account for relationship satisfaction. For German men and British and Australian women, those with a lower propensity to marry would benefit from marriage. Controls eliminate differences for German men, although not for U.K. women, but relationship satisfaction reduces differences. Overall, our study indicates that especially after selection and relationship satisfaction are taken into account, differences between marriage and cohabitation disappear in all countries. Marriage does not lead to higher subjective well-being; instead, cohabitation is a symptom of economic and emotional strain.
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