Dissertation Research: Marital Status and Psychological Well-Being: A Comparison of Married and Cohabiting Individuals

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This Doctoral Dissertation Improvement research examines the relationship between marriage and psychological well being, one of the most comprehensively examined relationships in the sociology of mental health literature. Studies comparing married individuals to ones that are unmarried, however, typically overlook individuals who are cohabiting. This omission could become increasingly problematic in terms of both theoretical development and policy making, as cohabitation becomes more common. The project will expand research on this topic by examining the mechanisms that underlie the relationship between marriage and mental health, investigating those mechanisms in cohabitation relationships, and assessing the mental health impact of transitions from cohabiting to marital relationships.A cross-section of the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH) will be used to compare married and cohabitation relationships in terms of their relative effects on mental health. Panels analyses of the NSFH will also be conducted on the NSFH to examine changes in mental health among cohabitors who married between one wave one and two of the study. While mechanisms such as social support, coping resources, and relationship quality should explain some variation in mental health between married and cohabiting individuals, the study proposed that the normative nature of marriage will also help to explain for the mental health advantages of marriage beyond previously identified