Table 2.
Select Wave 1 Characteristics of SRCs, Married, and Unmarried Older Adults.
| Married (n = 945) |
Unmarried (n = 443) |
||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Couple-centered |
Happy |
Volatile |
Bickering |
Withdrawing |
Family-focused |
Supportive |
Taxing |
Empty |
|
| n = 306 | n = 240 | n = 166 | n = 133 | n = 100 | n = 162 | n = 119 | n = 99 | n = 63 | |
| Indicatorsa | |||||||||
| Spouse talk about worries | 1.80 | 1.94 | 1.95 | 1.49 | 1.25 | — | — | — | — |
| Rely on spouse | 1.93 | 2.00 | 1.97 | 1.83 | 1.48 | — | — | — | — |
| Spend time together | 1.50 | 1.51 | 1.39 | 1.36 | 0.85 | — | — | — | — |
| Spouse frequently criticizes | 0.28 | 0.29 | 0.76 | 0.92 | 0.92 | — | — | — | — |
| Spouse too many demands | 0.25 | 0.26 | 0.62 | 0.85 | 0.96 | — | — | — | — |
| Marital unhappiness | 0.24 | 0.24 | 0.34 | 0.81 | 1.21 | — | — | — | — |
| Family talk about Worries | 1.03 | 1.72 | 1.40 | 0.93 | 1.30 | 1.49 | 1.86 | 1.20 | 1.23 |
| Rely on Family | 1.47 | 1.92 | 1.76 | 1.21 | 1.59 | 1.67 | 1.96 | 1.19 | 1.29 |
| Family frequently criticizes | 0.10 | 0.09 | 0.50 | 0.33 | 0.34 | 0.18 | 0.15 | 0.79 | 0.49 |
| Family too many demands | 0.20 | 0.31 | 0.62 | 0.39 | 0.55 | 0.13 | 0.33 | 0.82 | 0.47 |
| Friends talk about worries | 0.70 | 1.52 | 1.07 | 0.40 | 1.20 | 0.78 | 1.72 | 1.23 | 0.36 |
| Rely on friends | 1.13 | 1.78 | 1.33 | 0.55 | 1.37 | 1.24 | 1.92 | 1.22 | 0.29 |
| Friends frequently criticizes | 0.06 | 0.03 | 0.36 | 0.13 | 0.17 | 0.09 | 0.04 | 0.36 | 0.20 |
| Friends too many demands | 0.06 | 0.06 | 0.31 | 0.08 | 0.22 | 0.14 | 0.08 | 0.28 | 0.19 |
| No friends | 0.01 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.13 | 0.01 | 0.01 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.26 |
| Means on key study variables | |||||||||
| Loneliness (Wave l)b | 0.46* | 0.31 | 0.79*** | 1.25*** | 1.53*** | 1.33*** | 1.03*** | 2.09*** | 1.73*** |
| Functional limitationsb | 0.47 | 0.51 | 0.57 | 0.80* | 0.57 | 0.83** | 0.66 | 0.93** | 1 21*** |
| Gender within marital statusc | |||||||||
| Men | 0.39*** | 0.18*** | 0.l9† | 0 17*** | 0.07*** | 0.43† | 0.19* | 0.18 | 0.191† |
| Women | 0.23 | 0.37 | 0.15 | 0.09 | 0.16 | 0.34 | 0.29 | 0.24 | 0.12 |
Source. National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project (NSHAP).
Note. Unweighted conditional means from best fitting LCA models. Wave 2 Characteristics omitted given relative stability across waves; see text for details. SRCs = social role configurations; LCA = latent class analysis.
a
Range is 0 to 2 for all indicators except “no friends”; “no Friends” is 0 to 1.
b
Satterthwaite t tests for difference between the value for each SRC and the reference SRC of happy married.
c
Satterthwaite t test for difference in proportion in each SRC by gender.
†
p < .10.
*
p < .05.
**
p < .01.
***
p < .001 (two-tailed tests).