Social Origins, Marriage, and Mental Health

• In Event: 2266 - Family Section Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 3. Family, Relationships, and Mental Health

Abstract

While the association between marriage and mental health is well-established, less understood is how spouses’ social class origins relate to enhance or undermine well-being within the marital context. Results from a national sample of 1,272 adults aged 19-98 in 2017 show that married individuals report better average mental health compared to their non-married counterparts, but those married to spouses from different social origins derive no protection against anxiety from their marriages. Among men, mental health benefits were obtained only among those married to same-origin spouses. In other words, men who married different-origin spouses received no mental health benefit from being married. Among women, marriages of either type conferred no protection against anxiety. That is, no statistical difference in anxiety was obtained between married and non-married women. These findings show that social origins matter within the context of marriage and matter differently for the mental health of married women and men.

Author

• Renae Wilkinson, Baylor University