Loved Yet Harmful: The Health Paradox of Partner Embeddedness

• In Event: Social Connections and Health

Abstract

Research on partner embeddedness, namely the extent to which a romantic partner is integrated into an individual’s social network, has produced evidence in two opposing directions. On the one hand, a central partner provides social support, that is, access to a larger pool of resources, emotional aid, and help, all of which benefit individuals’ health. On the other hand, such support can foster a situation of heavy dependence. It implies the presence of a pervasive and dominant network member: a unique, strong tie who captures information, knows individuals’ vulnerabilities, and could reduce opportunities to interact privately with other network members. To adjudicate these competing expectations, we analyze nationally representative couple data from the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project (Rounds 3-4), comprising 1,377 U.S. older couples (N=2,754). We construct a novel duo-centric network utilizing the independently parallel egocentric network roster from both partners to capture partner embeddedness as a structural property of each partner’s position within the other’s personal network. To capture granular partner embeddedness within duo-centric couple networks, we adopt innovative measures, including confidant overlap, the partner’s degree, betweenness, and closeness centrality, alongside the partner’s own network size and the partner’s relative intimacy to the alters. We study how these duo-centric network configurations relate to longitudinal changes in relationship quality alongside health and mortality. Our main finding is that embeddedness improves relationship quality but increases mortality risk and is detrimental to health. This uncovers a health paradox: embeddedness represents a tie configuration that is loved by partners, yet harmful to their health. We therefore discuss how this finding may reshape our understanding of tie configurations, suggesting that even non-difficult, valued, and loved relational structures may carry adverse health consequences.

Authors

• Enzo Bessega, University of Chicago

• Yiang Li, University of Chicago

• Linda J. Waite, University of Chicago