Coulter, Rory;
Hu, Yang;
(2025)
Living apart together and older adults' mental health in the United Kingdom.
The Journals of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences
, 80
(3)
, Article gbae192. 10.1093/geronb/gbae192.
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Abstract
Objectives: Living apart together (LAT)—intimate partners living in separate households—is a common partnership type among older adults. Although the mental health benefts of intimate partnerships are widely documented, how LAT relates to older adults’ mental health remains understudied. Methods: Analyzing Waves 3–13 (2011–2023) of the United Kingdom Household Longitudinal Study, we use fxed effects models to examine (a) how older adults’ mental health varies with LAT, marriage, cohabitation, and singlehood (never married, widowed, divorced/separated) and (b) how transitions into and out of LAT, compared with marriage and cohabitation, relate to older adults’ mental health. Results: Overall, older adults have better mental health when LAT than when single, but little difference in mental health is found across LAT, cohabitation, and marital partnerships. Whereas older singles moving into LAT experience mental health improvements, those moving from LAT to singlehood suffer mental health declines. Although the mental health benefts of moving into LAT are smaller than those of entering cohabitation and particularly marriage, exiting LAT is associated with smaller mental health declines compared with exiting cohabitation and marriage. No statistically signifcant gender difference is found in the mental health benefts of LAT. Discussion: The fndings underscore LAT as a key form of family diversity in later life. They problematize the long-held ideal of coresidence in couple relationships and its role in sustaining older adults’ mental health. They encourage researchers to go beyond the household as a default unit of analysis and examine interhousehold intimate connections in older adults’ lives.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Living apart together and older adults' mental health in the United Kingdom |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1093/geronb/gbae192 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/gbae192 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © The Author(s) 2024. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Gerontological Society of America. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
| Keywords: | Family diversity, Gender, Life course, Relationship |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS > Dept of Geography |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10198221 |
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