Depression, Partnership Quality and Partnership Breakdown An analysis of the Millennium Cohort Study Anna Garriga Kathleen Kiernan University of York

Two important social changes 1)Depression: World Health Organization has estimated that 5-10% of the population at any given time is suffering from identifiable depression and that the life-time risk of developing depression is 10-20% in females and slightly less in males. By the year 2020, depression will be the second leading disability causing disease in the world. 2) Partnership Breakdown: In the last forty years all developed countries experienced an extraordinary increase in partnership breakdown due to the increase in divorce rates and cohabiting unions - since these couples appear to be less stable than married couples

How these changes are related to partnership quality? Many governments are concerned about the negative social impact of partnership breakdown and depression since these not only affect the adults themselves but also their children. Some are developing policies to lower the percentage of the population that suffer from depression (mental health services) and some are developing policies for reducing divorce and separation rates through programmes aimed at increasing partnership quality. However, can policies on partnership quality be effective in reducing depression and partnership breakdown? The aim of this paper is to answer this question by establishing the linkages between partnership relationship quality, breakdown and depression.

Literature on marital quality and depression (1) Several studies show a strong association between marital quality and depression. But these have several limitations: 1- Issue of the causality: Does depression affect partnership quality or does partnership quality affect depression? Most previous research uses cross-sectional data and community samples without including control variables in the analyses.

Literature on marital quality and depression (2) 2) Owing to data limitations previous research has not focused on the relationship between depression, partnership quality and partnership breakdown. Does partnership quality mediate the effect of depression on partnership breakdown? Does depression mediate the effect of partnership quality on partnership breakdown? 3) Previous studies only focus on married couples and not on cohabiting couples. º Do the association differ by type of union?

Data: The Millennium Cohort Study is a large-scale representative survey of babies born in United Kingdom. This survey contains information on children and their families. It has been carried out four sweeps, at age nine months, three, five and seven years.nine monthsthreefiveseven Problem?? Sample: In this study we use data of the first three sweeps. We restrict our sample to those parents that are in cohabiting or married unions in the first sweep (age 9 months) and remain together between the first and the second sweep (three years) and separate or remain together between the second and the third sweep (five years). The number of cases is We use multiple imputation for the missing cases. Similiar results are obtained using multiple imputation os listwise deletion (7526).

Analytical Strategy We use Structural Equation Modelling using PRELIS and LISREL We produce cross-lagged and reciprocal models and multigroup models.

Dependent Variables Partnership Breakdown at wave 3 (1-Partnership Breakdown; 0-Remain together). Depression of the mother at wave 2 was measured using the Kessler 6 scale which was administered as a computerised self report to the mother who were resident in the household at the age 3 survey. The Kessler 6 scale provides a measure of psychological distress from the respondent’s report of how often over the last 30 days they had felt depressed, hopeless, restless or fidgety, that everything you did was an effort, worthless, and nervous. For each item the respondent indicated whether they have felt this way none, a little, some, most, or all of the time which are scored from 0 to 4 respectively. The questions form a 24 point scale Depression of the mother at wave 1 was measured using a shortened version of Malaise scale (Rutter et al., 1970). In the MCS, 9 of the original 24 items of the original scale were used. There are only two possible answers for each item: yes or no. The measures of maternal depression for the two surveys are not identical but both have been used widely in general population studies. In order to compare both scales I standardized both scales and I transformed them to positive scale where malaise scale takes values from 0 (minimum) to 5.42 (maximum) and the kessler scale from 0 (minimum) to 7.21 (maximum)

Partnership Quality In order to evaluate partnership quality, we created an index with the three items of the of Golombok Rust Inventory of Marital State (Rust et al, 1990). My partner is usually sensitive to and aware of my needs My partner doesn't seem to listen to me. I sometimes feel lonely even when I am with my partner. There are several possible answers: 1) Strongly agree; 2) Agree; 3) Neither agree nor disagree 4) Disagree; 5)Strongly disagree The alpha cronbach of the partnership quality at wave 1 is 0.73 and of the partnership quality at wave 2 is 0.8.

Control variables at wave 1 Ethinicity:1- White 1; 0 non-white 0. Mother’s education: 0-No qualifications; 1-NVQ level 1; 2-NVQ level 2; 3-NVQ level 3; 4-NVQ level 4 or 5 Income: OECD equivalised income (minimum=13.20; maximum 87.98) Alternative family situation: 1-Parental divorce/ Parents never lived together/ Never lived with parents; 0- Parents live together. Before the age of 17 living away from both of your parents (excluding periods in a boarding schools). Duration of the relationship: year started living together or for those that married without a period of cohabitation year of marriage Type of union: 1-marriage; 0- cohabitation Mother’s age of the first live child: 1-30 or more; ; ;

Analytical Strategy Following Fischman (1997), we did several kinds of models: - Cross-lagged model - Reciprocal models Multigroup models compared depressed versus non depressed. Multigroup models comparing those that cohabit at wave 1 and those that are married.

Cross-lagged model Time 1 Time 2 Time 3 Depression Partnership Qualilty Depression Partnership Quality Partnership Breakdown 0.27*** 0.17*** 0.38*** 0.57*** 0.13** 0.06* *** 0.00 Chi-Square=12.72, df=46, P-value= , RMSEA=0.000

Main findings Cross-lagged model Independent effects: There is an effect of partnership quality on time 1 on depression on time 2 and an effect of depression on time 1 on partnership quality on time 2. However, the effect between partnership quality (time 1) and depression (time 2) seems stronger than the effect between depression (time 1) and partnership quality time (2). The effect of partnership quality on time 2 on partnership breakdown on time 3 is not mediated by depression on time 2. It seems that depression at time 2 does not have an effect on partnership breakdown.

Reciprocal model Time 1 Time 2 Time 3 Depression Partnership Qualilty Depression Partnership Quality Partnership Breakdown 0.29*** 0.13** 0.38*** 0.56*** *** 0.00 Chi-Square=12.72, df=46, P-value= , RMSEA= **

Reciprocal model main findings There are reciprocal effects between partnership quality and depression at time 2. It seems that the effect of partnership quality on depression is stronger than the effect of depression on partnership quality. The effect of partnership quality (time 2) on partnership breakdown (total effect:0.28***) is greater than the effect of depression on partnership breakdown (total effect:0.06**). However, the effect of partnership quality on partnership breakdown is not mediated by depression but the effect of depression on partnership breakdown is mediated by partnership quality (indirect efffect:0.04**)

Cross-lagged multigroup model depressed versus non depressed at wave 1 Time 1 Time 2 Time 3 Depression Partnership Qualilty Depression Partnership Quality Partnership Breakdown 0.27*** (0.13***) 0.17*** (0.27***) 0.23*** (0.29***) 0.39*** (0.49***) 0.04* (0.11***) 0.03* (0.08***) 0.04 (0.02) (0.03***) 0.29*** (0.24***) -0.10** (0.03**) Chi-Square=67.36, df=84, P-value= , RMSEA=0.000 Clinically depressed Non clinically depressed in brackets

Main findings: Multigroup Depression -The effect of partnership quality at wave 1 and depression at wave 2 is significantly stronger for those that are not depressed than for those that are depressed at wave 1 (x2=6.54, df=1, p <0.05). -There are not significant differences between groups in the reciprocal model.

Multigroup cohabitation versus marriage Reciprocal model The effect of depression time 2 on partnership quality at time 2 is significantly greater for those that were cohabiting at time 1 (x2=4.40, df=1, p <0.05). The effect of partnership quality on partnership breakdown is greater for those that were cohabiting at time 1 than for those that were married (x2=4.50, df=1, p <0.05). Crosslagged model: The same links are significantly different between groups.

Preliminary Conclusions Causality: Independent effects: It seems that partnership quality has an effect on depression and also that depression has an effect on partnership quality. But the effect of partnership quality on depression is stronger than the effect of depression on partnership quality. However, for those that are not depressed at time 1 the effect of partnership quality on depression at time 2 is greater than for those that are not depressed at time 1. This suggests that there is a group of mothers that the order of causality is from partnership quality to depression. Policies: In order to reduce depression, policies on partnership quality might be positive.

Conclusions Partnership Breakdown: The effect of partnership quality on partnership breakdown is greater than the effect of depression on partnership breakdown. The effect of depression on partnership breakdown is mediated by partnership quality. The effect of partnership quality on partnership breakdown is not mediated by partnership quality. Policies: In order to reduce partnership breakdown policies on partnership quality might be more effective than policies on depression. Cohabitation: In order to predict partnership breakdown, partnership quality is more important for cohabitants than for married people.