Living Together,Feeling Apart: Associations of Social Support and Emotional Maturity with Empty Nest Distress in Indonesian Cohabiting Families

Abstract

Empty nest syndrome (ENS) has conventionally been conceptualized within Western frameworks as parental distress arising from children's physical departure from the household. However, this perspective inadequately captures experiences of parents in collectivistic societies like Indonesia, where adult children commonly remain at home yet gradually develop emotional independence, giving rise to parental feelings of loneliness, loss of purpose, and diminished relational bonds. This study examined how social support and emotional maturity relate to ENS-related distress among 311 Indonesian middle-aged parents (aged 40–60; 60.5% female) who reported such difficulties despite living with their adult children. Participants completed validated Indonesian versions of three established instruments measuring perceived social support, emotional maturity, and ENS distress. Multiple regression analyses demonstrated that both variables were significantly and negatively associated with distress, together explaining 33.2% of its variance. Emotional maturity emerged as the considerably stronger predictor, while female participants reported higher distress levels than their male counterparts. These results suggest that ENS in collectivistic contexts is more accurately understood as an emotionally driven phenomenon than a residentially triggered one. Interventions tailored to collectivistic cultural values, particularly those emphasizing emotional regulation and strengthening of social networks, appear most pertinent for addressing ENS-related distress in similar populations.