Linking widowhood and later-life depressive symptoms: Do childhood socioeconomic circumstances matter?

Objectives: Widowhood and adverse childhood socioeconomic circumstances (CSC) have both been linked to increased levels of depressive symptoms in old age. Beyond their independent impact on depressive symptoms, experiencing adverse CSC may also trigger a cascade of cumulative adversity and secondary stressors across the life course that shapes how individuals weather stressful life events later on.Method: We examine whether exposure to adverse CSC moderates the relationship between later-life widowhood and depressive symptoms using data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (2004-2017).Results: Mixed-effects models revealed that both widowhood and adverse CSC were associated with increased levels of depressive symptoms among men and women. Associations between widowhood and depressive symptoms, however, were not moderated by CSC for both genders.Conclusion: Persisting differences in the levels of mental health in response to later-life widowhood did not further widen in the presence of disparities experienced early in the life course. This may reflect the life-altering impact of this age-normative, yet stressful life event across the social strata.

Marital Transitions and Depressive Symptoms among Older Adults: Examining Educational Differences.

BACKGROUND: Later decades of the life course have undergone rapid transformations due to demographic changes in ageing societies, such as more frequent occurrences of later-life marital transitions. Adaption to these transitions, even when welcomed, brings novel chances and challenges in negotiating new social roles in old age, which could reinforce preexisting disparities in the acquisition and mastery of resources, social ties, and coping strategies. OBJECTIVES: Because the ability to weather later-life marital transitions may depend on the long arm of education acquired earlier in the life course, the present study aims to identify and track trends in the prevalence of marriage, divorce/separation, and widowhood among sociodemographic subgroups; link the occurrence of those transitions with mental health; and test the influence of educational attainment on these associations. METHODS: We employ an intraindividual, within-person approach to quantify the occurrence of marital transitions and their impact using data from the Health and Retirement Study (n = 22,013; 1992-2010). Measures of transition occurrence, depressive symptoms, and educational attainment were available across up to 10 biennial assessments. RESULTS: Individuals with less than a high school diploma displayed the highest likelihood of losing their significant other through divorce/separation or death. Marital loss was associated with increasing, and marital gain with decreasing, depressive symptoms. Compared to those with less than a high school diploma, individuals with a high school or general equivalency diploma exhibited larger increases in depressive symptoms associated with widowhood, even though their average levels of depressive symptoms were lower in the absence of this transition. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings revealed a predictable educational gradient for the occurrence of marital transitions and later-life mental health. Yet higher, formalized education did not protect the participants from increased depression in the presence of a loss-related transition, which could suggest that the strains of spousal loss may to some degree function as a leveler of the preexisting social inequalities of stratified life courses. We conclude that the benefits conferred by education are not necessarily ubiquitous, and its impact on the adaptation to spousal loss may be more complex and nuanced depending on the range of prior experiences and available coping strategies.

Social Dimensions of Personal Growth following Widowhood: A Three-Wave Study.

BACKGROUND: Losing one's spouse is one of the most stressful life events in old age, yet research on positive consequences of overcoming critical life events describes experiences of personal growth for survivors. OBJECTIVE: Because prior studies conceptualized personal growth as a stable accomplishment of an individual, our study challenges this assumption by examining trajectories of personal growth and its links to two aspects of social support. We assume that personal growth is boosted by heightened levels of loss-related social support seeking during early years of widowhood. However, toward the later stages in the bereavement process, we expect personal growth to be fostered by perceived social embeddedness. DATA AND METHOD: Data stem from a survey on relationships in later life conducted in 2012, 2014, and 2016 in Switzerland. The final analytical sample consisted of 508 individuals aged 50+ years, who were on average 73 years old and widowed for about 3 years at baseline. Longitudinal explorative factor analyses yielded a 3-factorial solution for personal growth. Random-effects group-specific growth curves were used to examine the trajectories of personal growth and its subdimensions, by different levels of loss-related social support seeking and embeddedness in a supportive network, over the first 8 years of widowhood. Our analyses included time-invariant and time-varying covariates. RESULTS: On average, our findings point to a stable trajectory of personal growth after having become widowed in later life. Group-specific analyses, however, showed different courses in the trajectories for specific subdimensions of personal growth - particularly for spiritual change and appreciation of life. Average marginal effects also yielded group differences by loss-related support seeking in the level of personal growth over time, which highlight the importance of social support seeking, rather than social embeddedness, at all stages of the bereavement process. CONCLUSION: Findings underline the importance of a longitudinal and linked-lives perspective on personal growth and point to different pathways regarding its various subdimensions. Future research should further examine the validity of personal growth scales for other populations and consider the possibility to experience personal growth already during the anticipation of a traumatic event (e.g., in the case of long-term caretaking).

Household Debt, Maternal Well-Being, and Child Adjustment in Germany: Examining the Family Stress Model by Family Structure.

The amount of household debt tripled globally over the last decades and a sizable share of individuals and families are overindebted due to mortgages, credit cards, or consumer debt. Yet research on the distribution of debt across families, and potential ripple effects of the psychological burden related to debt on well-being and family relations, remains sparse. Our study aims to fill these gaps by examining the socio-demographic profiles of families that have accumulated household debt and the unique role that the psychological burden related to debt plays on associations between mothers' well-being, parental dynamics, and child adjustment based on the Family Stress Model (FSM). We used representative survey data collected in 2019 from Germany (N = 3271), which is one of the richest economies worldwide, yet about 10% of adults reported to be overindebted. Logistic regression results showed that single mothers were less likely to have debt compared to mothers in two-parent families. However, both single mothers and mothers in stepfamilies with high levels of perceived economic strain were particularly likely to report having debt. Structural equation modeling yielded that the links between the psychological burden of debt, maternal well-being, parental dynamics, and child adjustment were largely in line with the FSM, except for single mothers. We conclude that persisting financial disparities by family structure may be partially fostered by unique characteristics of the German welfare state, such as promoting more a traditional two-parent norm, and discuss our findings in light of practical implications.

Work from home and parenting: Examining the role of work-family conflict and gender during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Many employers introduced or expanded working from home (WFH) in response to increasing infection rates after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Whether WFH enhances or depletes parents' resources for their children is still an open question. Drawing on contextual models of parenting and demands-resources approaches, we examine how WFH during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic was linked to changes in responsive and harsh parenting, particularly in light of pandemic-related increases in work-to-family conflicts (WFC). We further investigate gender differences in these associations. Our analyses draw on a sample of working parents from a large-scale German family survey conducted in 2019 and a COVID-19 follow-up from 2020. Results from first difference regression models in combination with Heckman's sample selection method revealed strongly gendered patterns of changes in parenting. Specifically, responsive parenting decreased and harsh parenting increased only among mothers who did not work from home. In addition, WFH buffered increased spillovers from WFC on declines in responsive parenting among mothers. In contrast, fathers' parenting remained largely unaffected by pandemic-related changes in their work situation. We conclude that WFH can be a resource gain because it seems to have relieved some pandemic-related parenting strain for mothers. Yet as a consequence, it may have reinforced gendered patterns of childcare. We discuss implications for policymakers and support services for families. We also place a special emphasis on those who are not able to work from home because this seems to have increased the risk that high work demands impaired their parenting during the early stages of the pandemic.