Living Apart Together and Older Adults' Mental Health in the United Kingdom.

IF 4.8 2区医学 Q1 GERIATRICS & GERONTOLOGY

Journals of Gerontology Series B-Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences Pub Date : 2025-02-10 DOI:10.1093/geronb/gbae192

Yang Hu, Rory Coulter

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Objectives: Living apart together (LAT)-intimate partners living in separate households-is a common partnership type among older adults. Although the mental health benefits of intimate partnerships are widely documented, how LAT relates to older adults' mental health remains understudied.

Methods: Analyzing Waves 3-13 (2011-2023) of the United Kingdom Household Longitudinal Study, we use fixed effects models to examine (a) how older adults' mental health varies with LAT, marriage, cohabitation, and singlehood (never married, widowed, divorced/separated) and (b) how transitions into and out of LAT, compared with marriage and cohabitation, relate to older adults' mental health.

Results: Overall, older adults have better mental health when LAT than when single, but little difference in mental health is found across LAT, cohabitation, and marital partnerships. Whereas older singles moving into LAT experience mental health improvements, those moving from LAT to singlehood suffer mental health declines. Although the mental health benefits of moving into LAT are smaller than those of entering cohabitation and particularly marriage, exiting LAT is associated with smaller mental health declines compared with exiting cohabitation and marriage. No statistically significant gender difference is found in the mental health benefits of LAT.

Discussion: The findings underscore LAT as a key form of family diversity in later life. They problematize the long-held ideal of coresidence in couple relationships and its role in sustaining older adults' mental health. They encourage researchers to go beyond the household as a default unit of analysis and examine interhousehold intimate connections in older adults' lives.

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英国的分居生活与老年人的心理健康。

目的：分居同居（LAT）——亲密伴侣住在不同的家庭——是老年人中常见的伴侣关系类型。尽管亲密伙伴关系对心理健康的益处被广泛记录，但LAT与老年人心理健康的关系仍未得到充分研究。方法：分析英国家庭纵向研究的第3-13波（2011-2023），采用固定效应模型检验(1)老年人心理健康随年龄、婚姻、同居和单身（未婚、丧偶、离婚/分居）的变化；(2)与婚姻和同居相比，进入和退出LAT与老年人心理健康的关系。结果：总体而言，老年人在同居状态下的心理健康状况优于单身状态，但在同居状态下、同居状态下和婚姻状态下的心理健康状况差异不大。虽然老年单身人士进入LAT后心理健康状况有所改善，但从LAT转为单身的人心理健康状况却有所下降。虽然迁入LAT的心理健康益处小于同居，尤其是结婚，但与退出同居和婚姻相比，退出LAT的心理健康下降幅度较小。在LAT的心理健康益处方面，没有发现统计学上显著的性别差异。讨论：研究结果强调LAT是晚年生活中家庭多样性的关键形式。他们对长期以来夫妻关系中共同居住的理想及其在维持老年人心理健康方面的作用提出了质疑。他们鼓励研究人员超越作为默认分析单位的家庭，研究老年人生活中家庭间的亲密关系。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Journals of Gerontology Series B-Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences 医学-老年医学

CiteScore

11.60

自引率

8.10%

发文量

178

审稿时长

6-12 weeks

期刊介绍： The Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences publishes articles on development in adulthood and old age that advance the psychological science of aging processes and outcomes. Articles have clear implications for theoretical or methodological innovation in the psychology of aging or contribute significantly to the empirical understanding of psychological processes and aging. Areas of interest include, but are not limited to, attitudes, clinical applications, cognition, education, emotion, health, human factors, interpersonal relations, neuropsychology, perception, personality, physiological psychology, social psychology, and sensation.