linking lives through time Living alone and mental health: a longitudinal study Zhiqiang Feng, Peteke Feijten, Paul Boyle Longitudinal Studies Centre for Scotland School of Geography and Geosciences University of St Andrews Scotland, UK

linking lives through time Introduction Living alone has become a common phase in the lifecourse with one person households now making up a third of all households in Britain This is a rising trend in western societies Proportion of year olds living alone in Britain has trebled from 5% in 1971 to 16% in 2002

linking lives through time Proportion of households and people in one person households Source: Social Trends No 36, 2006, ONS

linking lives through time Introduction Increase of people who live alone has many social, economic and policy implications The trends are regarded as symbolic of excessive individualism (Bauman 1995). Also optimistically as a democratisation of personal life

linking lives through time Introduction Increase of living alone leads to more housing demand, more poverty, social inequality, care demand, decrease of fertility And health problems which are not widely researched.

linking lives through time Does living alone matter? Living alone is a type of social isolation Social isolation may be detrimental to individuals’ mental health Faris, (1934) “Any form of isolation that cuts the person off from intimate social relations for an extended period of time may lead to this form of mental disorder”.

linking lives through time Does living alone matter? People living alone are less likely to develop close personal relationship and the same level of commitment to other people than people who living together Persons living alone much less likely to be engaged in mutual obligations and mutual reinforcement of a primary type, particularly on a daily basis

linking lives through time Does living alone matter? Persons living alone less likely involve emotional gratification and personal satisfaction. Although individually people living alone may be better off they are worse off because of pooling effects for people living as a family Living alone more likely to have pathological behaviour, smoking, drinking

linking lives through time Does living alone matter? However, social integration involves not only benefits but costs Social relations can be a source of emotional, physical, and financial tension (House, et al 1988) At an extreme, of all social ties, family relations are most likely to be negative and damaging to individual well-being.

linking lives through time Does living alone matter? Marriage has been shown to have protective effects on people’s health Married people enjoy better mental health than other demographic groups (Lillard & Panis, 1996)

linking lives through time Previous studies Supportive –Smith et al 2005; Rogers et al 2000; Denton & Walters, 1999; Hughes & Waite 2002; Joutsenniemi et al 2006 Unsupportive –Hughes & Gove 1981; Denton & Walters 1999

linking lives through time What will this study do? This research focuses on the effect of living alone on mental health Longitudinal data

linking lives through time Research questions Does living alone affect mental health? Does living alone affect mental health independent of marital status? Does the transition into living alone affect mental health? Are there gender differences in the effect of living alone?

linking lives through time Data British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) A national representative sample Prospective samples-interviewees are followed annually from 1991 All household members over 16 are interviewed , 5000 households and people

linking lives through time Measurement of mental health General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) 12 questions like –Have you recently: Lost much sleep over worry? Felt constantly under strain? Felt you could not overcome your difficulties? Been feeling unhappy and depressed? Been losing confidence in yourself? Been thinking of yourself as a worthless person?

linking lives through time Measurement of mental health We use the caseness method, each response is coded 0, and 1 Total 12 items end up with 0 to 12 A dichotomous variable is constructed with a threshold of 4 Individuals aged 16 to 64 are included in our study

linking lives through time Proportion of poor mental health by gender and living arrangements Source: BHPS

linking lives through time Proportion of living alone by gender and age Source: BHPS

linking lives through time Modelling issues Longitudinal data allow us to –Control unobserved heterogeneity Ability to cope with stress Childhood experience –Study transitions between different living arrangements

linking lives through time Modelling issues Fixed effect logistic models for models of being alone Logistic models for effects of transition into living alone (excluding never married or never cohabiting) Control for age, household income, urban rural areas of residence, education, employment status, smoking, number of friends, and region of residence

linking lives through time MenWomen Married1 1 Widowed2.052* ( )2.407** ( ) Divorced1.193 ( )1.009( ) Separated3.281** ( )1.913** ( ) Never Married1.124 ( )0.991( ) N Observation Log-likelihood *p<0.05 ** p<0.01 %95 confidence intervals in bracket Model 1 - Odds ratios by marital status

linking lives through time Model 2 Odds ratio by living arrangements Men Women Living together11 Living alone1.229** ( ) ( ) N Observation Log-likelihood *p<0.05 ** p<0.01 %95 confidence intervals in bracket

linking lives through time Model 3 Odds ratios by marital status and living arrangements MenWomen Married1 1 Widowed2.438** ( )2.497**( ) Divorced1.148 ( )1.027( ) Separated3.320** ( )1.941**( ) Never Married1.172 ( )1.006( ) Living together11 Living alone0.924 ( )0.930( ) N Observation Log-likelihood *p<0.05 ** p<0.01 %95 confidence intervals in bracket

linking lives through time Model 4 Odds ratios by marital status and living arrangements MenWomen Married & together1 1 Married & alone1.434 ( )0.610 ( ) Widowed & together2.975* ( ) 2.645** ( ) Widowed &alone2.068* ( ) 2.193** ( ) Divorced & together1.444 ( ) ( ) Divorced & alone0.978 ( ) ( ) Separated & together 4.281** ( ) 1.917** ( ) Separated & alone2.843** ( ) 1.847** ( ) Never married & together1.130 ( ) ( ) Never married & alone1.142 ( ) ( ) N Observation Log-likelihood *p<0.05 ** p< % confidence intervals in bracket

linking lives through time Model 5 Odds ratios by transitions between living arrangements MenWomen Married & together1 1 Married to wid/div/sep 5.812** ( ) 4.525** ( ) & together Married to wid/div/sep 6.034** ( ) 7.881** ( ) & alone N Observations Log likelihood *p<0.05 ** p<0.01 %95 confidence intervals in bracket

linking lives through time Proportion of people with poor mental health by transition of living arrangements Source: BHPS

linking lives through time Conclusions Being living alone tends to negatively affects mental status for men but not women Being living alone does not have independent effects on mental health from marital status Transition into living alone has strong effects on mental health and increases risks of mental disorders in short-term

linking lives through time Future studies Better methodologies in tackling endogeneity using SEM modelling or 2SLS Dynamic panel models taking account of state dependency Increase sample size by incorporating more data from the latest waves More analysis of duration effects

linking lives through time Acknowledgements The BHPS data are made available through the UK Data Archive and were collected by the ESRC Research Centre on Micro-social Change at the University of Essex, now incorporated within Institute for Social Economic Research.