Forget the wedding bells for guaranteed happiness in later life. A University of Vienna study reveals that for individuals over 50, moving in with a new partner significantly boosts life satisfaction, a benefit marriage alone doesn’t provide. This positive impact is consistent across genders and ages, suggesting cohabitation, not legal status, is the key to well-being.
Most of us have grown up hoping for a happily ever after. A beautiful beginning of romance, sealed by marriage, which is supposed to guarantee lasting happiness. Growing old with someone has always been tied to marriage.
As an increasing number of people choose to live together, without tying the knot, an important question emerges: is marriage truly essential for lifelong happiness?Researchers at the University of Vienna looked at how relationship milestones, such as moving in together or getting married, affect happiness among older adults. The findings are published in the International Journal of Behavioural Development.
How relationship events affect older adults
A new study by psychologist Iris Wahring from the University of Vienna and her international team found that when people over 50 enter a new relationship and seal it by moving in together, their life satisfaction increases significantly.
Marriage, on the other hand, had no significant effect. The study also showed that couples who already live together had no further increase in well-being by getting married later in life.
Until now, research has mostly explored loss events, such as how people cope with the death of a partner or a painful breakup. However, Iris Wahring and her research team from Humboldt University in Berlin, the University of British Columbia and Stanford University looked at how a ‘gain event’ influences older adults.
Gain events are moments when a new love enters their lives in old age.The researchers collected long-term data from 2,840 participants in the US Health and Retirement Study aged between 50 and 95. They compared how depressive symptoms and life satisfaction change when people move in with or marry a new partner.
Living together – a decisive turning point
The researchers found that moving in together is more decisive than legal status. “The transition to living together with a new partner was accompanied by a significant increase in life satisfaction,” Wahring explained in a release.
This positive impact is independent of whether the couple is married or not. “Our results show that the bonus for well-being is already achieved by sharing a life together in a partnership. The marriage itself does not offer any measurable additional gain in life happiness for couples who already share a table and a bed,” the researcher added. Another interesting observation was that relationship breakups at this age, didn’t lead to a measurable decline in well-being.
“This suggests that older adults have remarkable emotional resilience or use other social resources to cushion such transitions,” said Wahring.Gender also had no impact on satisfaction levels. However, men reported less emotional support from their social circle (friends and family). But the positive effect of a new cohabitation was very similar for both genders and across all age groups studied.“These are statistical averages. While the group of people who move in together benefits overall, individual experiences can of course vary in each case – every relationship and every life path remains unique,” Wahring said. The social context also matters here. “Our findings reflect the situation in North America, but since relationship norms in the USA and Austria have developed similarly, the findings are easily transferable. Historically, there was a clear ‘marriage bonus’ in Europe and North America, but this is no longer evident in current studies such as this one. The reason for this could be the declining stigmatisation of unmarried couples.
In countries with stronger prejudices against unmarried people, however, a significant marriage bonus could still exist today,” Wahring concluded.
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