Marital Quality and Well-Being Among Older Adults: A Typology of Supportive, Aversive, Indifferent, and Ambivalent Marriages

A large body of work has linked marital quality to the health and well-being of older adults, but there is a lack of agreement on how to best measure dimensions of marital quality. Drawing on a stress-process life course perspective, we construct a typology of marriage type that captures the synergistic relationship between positive and negative marital qualities and health. Using data from Wave 1 (2005/2006) and Wave 2 (2010/2011) of the NSHAP survey from the United States, we examine the association between supportive, aversive, ambivalent, and indifferent marriages for older adults that remained married over the study period on multiple indicators of well-being (depression, happiness, and self-rated health; N = 769 males and 461 females). Results suggest that older adults in aversive marriages reported lower happiness (men and women) and physical health (men). There was less evidence that those in ambivalent and indifferent marriages reported worse well-being.