Happiness Singled Out: Bidirectional Associations Between Singlehood and Life Satisfaction

Abstract

Despite constituting a large portion of society, single people-and their satisfaction with singlehood and life-are rarely examined in their own right. How happy are single people and does their happiness change over time? In 3,439 people followed over 10 years, we found that people reported being more satisfied than not, but both singlehood satisfaction and life satisfaction declined over time. Older adults, men, and highly educated people, and people with worse health reported lower singlehood satisfaction. Constrained random-intercept cross-lagged panel models suggested that singlehood and life satisfaction had lagged bidirectional influences with each other. Results are discussed in the context of the origins of singlehood satisfaction and life satisfaction.

Keywords: PAIRFAM; growth curve modeling; life satisfaction; random-intercept cross-lagged panel models; singlehood.