Divorced or single moms in their 50s are more likely to be unhappy than women who are married or in a committed relationship, according to a recent study at the University of Florida.
Being in good health and having a husband or partner gave the biggest boost to older women’s psychological well-being, said Tanya Koropeckyj-Cox, lead author and a UF sociology professor. “The most vulnerable group in terms of being least happy, loneliest and most depressed are the mothers who were single, divorced or widowed in middle age,” she said.
Koropeckyi-Cox’s information came from a study of nearly 6,000 women between the ages of 51 and 61. The study used data from two major national surveys: the Health and Retirement Study, conducted in 1992, which includes women born between 1931 and 1941, and the National Survey of Families and Households, which provides a comparable sample from 1987-88.
For mothers, psychological well-being also was heavily influenced by when they had their children. Women who gave birth early, before age 19, reported being more depressed and lonelier than mothers who had their children later, Koropeckyj-Cox said. Slightly more than one-third — 35 percent — of “early mothers” reported ever feeling lonely, for example, compared with about a quarter — 25 percent to 27 percent — of mothers who had their children in their 20s or later, she said.
“Those women who delay childbearing and possibly marriage as well are able to spend their early adult years focusing on education and career, which helps them economically and gives them more opportunities later in their 30s and 40s and beyond,” she said.
Besides being better educated and having higher incomes, older mothers may find it rewarding to have children young enough to be at home as they enter their 50s, she said.
Life satisfaction was lower among those who had been single mothers, and more than half of early mothers had been without a partner at some time when their children were under 18, compared with a quarter to a third of women who gave birth on-time or late.
