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This study looked at rates of depressive symptoms across a range of countries (including Ireland) to assess whether there was any correlation between marital status and depressive symptoms. They found that across all the countries they looked at, unmarried people were 80% more likely to have depressive symptoms than married people, with Irish people being twice as likely.
The study makes no suggestion that one thing causes the other, it just looks at the compared rates. The Irish data is also limited to older generations.
Prof Brendan Kelly, Professor of Psychiatry, Trinity College Dublin, said:
“This study includes data from over 5,000 participants in the Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA), including 555 people with depressive symptoms. In Ireland, people who were unmarried were twice as likely to report depressive symptoms as people who were married, similar to the UK.
This is a robust, solid study that re-affirms the well-described relationship between being unmarried and reporting depressive symptoms.
This study adds to our knowledge because of the longitudinal nature of some of its analysis. In other words, it has always been unclear if depressive symptoms increased the chances of being unmarried, or being unmarried increased depressive symptoms, or both. This paper suggests that people who are unmarried have a higher risk of subsequent depressive symptoms.
This accords with other studies suggesting bidirectionality. In other words, while depressive symptoms can indeed contribute to relationship problems, it is also true that being married can be protective against future depressive symptoms.
The main limitation of this study is that so many factors influence depressive symptoms. These researchers did a good job taking account of age, sex, education, and other considerations in their analysis, but it is still the case that many other factors influence the occurrence of depressive symptoms, such as genetics. These are difficult to take into account in studies of this type.
From a clinical perspective, the take-home message is not necessarily that everyone should rush off and get married. The take-home message is that relationships matter deeply to mental health, and are well worth nourishing.”
Dr Carmel Hannan, Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology, University of Limerick, said:
“Context:
A large body of research has looked at the benefits of marriage for societies, economies and individuals. Economists have noted that married men are happier, as an example. But, why is the case? Much work has found that the association between mental health and marital status is weaker once you take into account the selective intake into marriage. That is, married people tend to be more educated, earn more money and own their own homes (Hannan and Halpin 2014).
This paper:
This new research finds that the link between being single (especially being divorced or separated) and depression is stronger in Ireland, the UK and USA than in Korea, China and Indonesia. The greatest risk of developing depression is among highly educated unmarried men in western countries, including Ireland. The research finds a significant role of alcohol and tobacco use in explaining the association between depression and singledom. For unmarried Irish people, the risk of developing depression increases dramatically if you drink more than 2 to 3 times per month.
Comments:
The data for Ireland is from TILDA which only contains information on older adult (over 50 years) and is therefore limited to the older generations.
The study uses data from 541 million adults and raises lots of questions as to why we see differences in the association between marital status and depression across countries. The authors discuss some explanations (such as differences in cultural norms around marriage, singlehood stigma, varying levels of social supports and emotional expression styles) but further research is needed to understand these cultural and societal differences and how they impact rates of depression.”
DOI:
Prof Kelly: none
Association and causal mediation between marital status and depression in seven countries’ by Zhai et al. was published in Nature Human Behaviour at 16:00 Irish time Wednesday 18th September 2024.