Health problems in midlife have been shown to continue into later adulthood. This continuity may be attributed to social selection and social causation, with longitudinal sequential associations between health problems and economic pressure (EP) over the life course creating mediational effects (health → EP → health). Moreover, in enduring marriages, this potential mediation may operate as a dyadic process over time. Yet this mediational process involving health problems and economic pressure has not been adequately investigated in couple contexts. Using a sample of 257 husbands and wives in enduring marriages, we investigated multilevel mediation processes between health problems and EP from midlife to later adulthood. The results indicate unique couple- and individual-level (only for husbands) mediation processes of health problems in the couple context, emphasizing the value of considering both couple- and individual-level health processes when developing health interventions.
BartonA. W.BryantC. M. (2016). Financial strain, trajectories of marital processes, and African American newlyweds’ marital instability. Journal of Family Psychology, 30, 657–664. doi:10.1037/fam0000190
2.
BerscheidE.AmmazzalorsoH. (2001). Emotional experience in close relationships. In FletcherG. J.ClarkM. S. (Eds.), Interpersonal process. Blackwell handbook of social psychology (pp. 308–330). Malden, MA: Blackwell.
3.
BubonyaM.Cobb-ClarkD. A.WoodenM. (2017). Job loss and the mental health of spouses and adolescent children. Journal of Labor Economics, 6, 6. doi:10.1186/s40172-017-0056-1
4.
ClarkeP. J.O’MalleyP. M.SchulenbergJ. E.JohnstonL. D. (2010). Midlife health and socioeconomic consequences of persistent overweight across early adulthood: Findings from a national survey of American adults (1986−2008). American Journal of Epidemiology, 5, 540–548. doi:10.1093/aje/kwq156
5.
CongerR. D.DonnellanM. B. (2007). An interactionist perspective on the socioeconomic context of human development. Annual Review of Psychology, 58, 175–199. doi:10.1146/annurev.psych.58.110405.085551
6.
CongerR. D.ElderG. H.Jr. (1994). Families in troubled times: Adapting to change in rural America. New York, NY: Aldine de Gruyter.
7.
FalconierM. K. (2010). Female anxiety and male depression: Links between economic strain and psychological aggression in Argentinean couples. Family Relations, 59, 424–438. doi:10.1111/j.1741-3729.2010.00613.x
8.
GalovanA. M.HolmesE. K.ProulxC. M. (2017). Theoretical and methodological issues in relationship research: Considering the common fate model. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 34, 44–68. doi:10.1177/0265407515621179
9.
HeitlerS. (2001). Combined individual/marital therapy: A conflict resolution framework and ethical considerations. Journal of Psychotherapy Integration, 11, 349–383. doi:1016606317558
10.
KennyD. A.KashyD. A.CookW. L. (2006). Dyadic data analysis. New York, NY: Guilford Press.
11.
Kiecolt-GlaserJ. K.WilsonS. J. (2017). Lovesick: How couples’ relationships influence health. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 13, 421–443. doi:10.1146/annurev-clinpsy-032816-045111
12.
LeBlancA. J.FrostD. M.WightR. (2015). Minority stress and stress proliferation among same-sex and other marginalized couples. Journal of Marriage and Family, 77, 40–59. doi:10.1111/jomf.12160.
13.
LedermannT.KennyD. A. (2012). The common fate model for dyadic data: Variations of a theoretically important but underutilized model. Journal of Family Psychology, 26, 140–148. doi:10.1037/a0026624
14.
LeeD.JacksonM. (2017). The simultaneous effects of socioeconomic disadvantage and child health on children’s cognitive development. Demography, 54, 1845–1871. doi:10.1007/s13524-017-0605-z
15.
LeeT. K.WickramaK. A. S.O’NealC. W. (2019). Midlife general psychopathology trajectories and later-life physical health in husbands and wives. Health Psychology, 38(6),553–562.
16.
LeeT. K.WickramaK. A. S.O’NealC. W. (2019). Early socioeconomic adversity and cardiometabolic risk in young adults: Mediating roles of risky health lifestyle and depressive symptoms. Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 42, 150–161. doi:10.1007/s10865-018-9952-5
17.
LeonardT.HughesA. E.PruittS. L. (2017). Understanding how low-socioeconomic status households cope with health shocks: An analysis of multisector linked data. The Annuals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, 669, 125–145. doi:10.1177/0002716216680989
18.
LittleT. D. (2013). Longitudinal structural equation modeling. New York, NY: Guilford.
19.
LorenzF. O.WickramaK. A. S.CongerR. D.ElderG. H.Jr. (2006). The short-term and decade-long effects of divorce on women’s midlife health. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 47, 111–125. doi:10.1177/002214650604700202
20.
MacKinnonD. P. (2011). Integrating mediators and moderators in research design. Research on Social Work Practice, 21, 675–681. doi:10.1177/1049731511414148
21.
MeylerD.StimpsonJ. P.PeekM. K. (2007). Health concordance within couples: A systematic review. Social Science and Medicine, 64, 2297–2310. doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2007.02.007
22.
MuthénL. K.MuthénB. O. (2017). Mplus user’s guide (8th ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Muthén & Muthén.
23.
NadimM. (2016). Undermining the male breadwinner ideal? Understanding of women’s paid work among second-generation immigrants in Norway. Sociology, 50, 109–124. doi:10.1177/0038038514560259
24.
OhrnbergerJ.FicheraE.SuttonM. (2017). The relationship between physical and mental health: A mediation analysis. Social Science and Medicine, 195, 42–49. doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.11.008
25.
PearlinL. I.SchiemanS.FazioE. M.MeersmanS. C. (2005). Stress, health, and the life course: Some conceptual perspectives. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 46, 205–219. doi:10.1177/002214650504600206
26.
PolenickC. A.RennB. N.BirdittK. S. (2018). Dyadic effects of depressive symptoms on medical morbidity in middle-aged and older couples. Health Psychology, 37, 28–36. doi:10.1037/hea0000573
27.
RossC. E.HuberJ. (1985). Hardship and depression. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 26, 312–328. doi:10.2307/2136655
28.
SchiemanS.YoungM. (2011). Economic hardship and family-to-work conflict: The importance of gender and work conditions. Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 32, 46–61. doi:10.1007/s10834-010-9206-3
29.
SchofieldT. J.AbrahamW. T. (2017). Intergenerational continuity in attitudes: A latent variable family fixed-effects approach. Journal of Family Psychology, 31, 1005–1016. doi:10.1037/fam0000375
30.
SelvarajanT. T.CloningerP. A.SinghB. (2013). Social support and work-family conflict: A test of an indirect effects model. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 83, 486–499. doi:10.1016/j.jvb.2013.07.004
31.
ShadishW. R.CookT. D.CampbellD. T. (2002). Experimental and quasi-experimental designs for generalized causal inference. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.
32.
ThoitsP. A. (2010). Stress and health major findings and policy implications. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 51, S41–S53. doi:10.1177/0022146510383499
33.
UlbrichP. M. (1988). The determinants of depression in two-income marriages. Journal of Marriage and Family, 50, 121–131. doi:10.2307/352433
34.
VogelD. L.WesterS. R.HammerJ. H.Downing-MatibagT. M. (2014). Referring men to seek help: The influence of gender role conflict and stigma. Psychology of Men and Masculinity, 15, 60–67. doi:10.1037/a0031761
35.
WarrenJ. R. (2009). Socioeconomic status and health across the life course: A test of the social causation and health selection hypotheses. Social Forces, 87, 2125–2153. doi:10.1353/sof.0.0219
36.
WhitbeckL. B.SimonsR. L.CongerR. D.LorenzF. O.ShirleyH.ElderG. H.Jr. (1991). Family economic hardship, parental support, and adolescent self-esteem. Social Psychology Quarterly, 54, 353–363. doi:10.2307/2786847
37.
WickramaK. A. S.KwagK. H.LorenzF. O.CongerR. D.SurjadiF. F. (2010). Dynamics of family economic hardship and the progression of health problems of husbands and wives during the middle years: A perspective from rural Mid-West. Journal of Aging and Health, 22, 1132–1157. doi:10.1177/0898264310377353
38.
WickramaK. A. S.LeeT. K.O’NealC. W.LorenzF. O. (2016). Higher order growth curves and mixture modeling with Mplus: A practical guide. New York, NY: Routledge.
39.
WickramaK. A. S.O’NealC. W.NepplT. K. (in press). Midlife family economic hardship and later life cardiometabolic health: The protective role of marital integration. The Gerontologist. doi:10.1093/geront/gny047
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
