Mapping Life Satisfaction Over the First Years of Cohabitation Among Former Singles Living Alone in UK and Germany.

Objective: As social norms and relationship dynamics evolve, it is important to examine how transitions from singlehood to partnership, cohabitation, and marriage relate to well-being.

Method: Using data from two large panel studies in the UK and Germany (1984-2019), we identified N = 27,459 individuals who reported being single and living alone at least once. Analyses focused on a subset (N = 1103; M_age = 38.35, SD_age = 13.87; 43.8% women) who later entered a relationship and moved in with a partner.

Results: Life satisfaction increased over the short to medium term after cohabitation across most socio-demographic groups. The increase peaked in the year of moving in (Δ ≈ 0.48 SD) and remained above pre-transition levels for the 2 subsequent years analyzed. Those who had found a partner one year before had already achieved significantly higher life satisfaction, while cohabitation showed no additional effect. Marriage showed a short-lived additional effect in the early 1990s, but not more recently. Lower-income individuals experienced a stronger post-peak decline.

Conclusion: Findings suggest that well-being increases are more closely aligned with relationship formation than with cohabitation or marriage. Among participants already in a relationship, increases in well-being were observed prior to cohabitation, suggesting anticipatory effects.