Friends, family, and romantic partners: Three critical relationships in older women’s lives

ABSTRACT

How are different social relationships jointly and uniquely associated with older women’s health and well-being, and what is the directionality of these associations? We address these questions using longitudinal data from the Midlife in the United States study. We find that relationship quality with romantic partners, family, and friends is positively linked with better health and well-being concurrently and longitudinally. Cross-lagged analyses indicate that romantic relationships are more predictive of than predicted by health and well-being, family relationships are more predicted by than predictive of health and well-being, and friendships are both predicted by and predictive of health and well-being.

KEYWORDS:

• Adult development
• health and well-being
• social relationships

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website

Notes

1. Results were largely consistent when using the 12-item romantic partner relationship quality measure.

Additional information

Funding

Data comes from the Midlife in the United States Study (MIDUS). Since 1995 the MIDUS study has been funded by the following: John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Research Network; National Institute on Aging (P01-AG020166); and National Institute on Aging (U19-AG051426). The data that support the findings of this study are available through the ICPSR at https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/ICPSR/series/203.