Time-Varying Correlates of Adult Singlehood: Education, Work, Living Arrangements, and Mental Health.

Research shows that single adults have lower educational attainment and are less likely to be employed than adults who are married or cohabiting. In addition, single adults are more likely to reside with parents and less likely to live with a child than partnered adults. Psychological well-being is also lower when individuals are single compared to when they are partnered, either through cohabitation or marriage. Using fixed-effects logistic regression models and ten waves of longitudinal data from the Youth Development Study (n=504 women and 421 men), we examine how changes in education, work, living arrangements (e.g., living with children, parents, and/or roommates), and mental health predict occasions in adulthood when respondents were single (i.e., not living with a spouse or cohabiting with an unmarried partner) from ages 21 to 38. Results show that the percentage of women who reported being single dropped from 82% to 35%, and for men, it declined from 87% to 32% from ages 21 to 38. For women and men, the odds of singlehood were higher when individuals were living with parents or living with roommates, net of age and time-stable unobserved factors. The odds were lower when living with children, as well as after earning a BA/BS degree. We observed some sex differences in these associations, as the odds of singlehood were lower when men worked full-time and when women were not attending school. In addition, singlehood was positively associated with depressive affect for women but not for men. Overall, the correlates shed light on the growing population of single US adults.