Marital status significantly impacts social life and the social network’s structure while having important life outcomes, such as well-being and health, which are further influenced by romantic relationships. A committed relationship is considered a part of the cultural norm among adults, even as a one-person household has steadily increased, given that more people are avoiding the lifelong union.
Approximately 5% of Europe’s population remains unpartnered by age 40 with notable variations across countries. This increasing population needs close attention since it can lead to effects that be psychological and material that are related to the relationship status as maturity approaches. As singles who are maturing seem to become more accommodated concerning their status in relationships, they even grow into older partnered individuals.
After retirement, social networks become increasingly important, particularly as health challenges emerge. Personality traits such as extraversion, neuroticism, and conscientiousness, alongside life satisfaction, are key determinants of health and longevity. By extension, married people realize some benefits not being enjoyed by singles in issues like health and economic policies. Thus, they would also hold some clues in constructing harmful health predictors among lifelong singles for developing health-sensitive programs suited for them based on personality traits and, finally, ascertaining if social networks differ between lifelong singletons and those ever-partnered.
This research was conducted on the Big Five personality traits and life satisfaction in lifelong singles as opposed to ever-partnered individuals in middle and older adulthood. The findings also examined the variations with differing definitions of lifelong singles. Through SHARE data with an extensive sample, the investigation representative panel study currently involving more than 140,000 respondents from 28 countries (27 European countries and Israel), the research investigated country-level factors influencing differences in personality and well-being between singles and partnered individuals.
It is reported, especially, that the religious context was associated with happiness levels in both married and unmarried people. In addition, the gender ratio may affect the probability of entering a heterosexual relationship, while the singlehood ratio could express normative pressure to start relationships. The effects of age, sex, income, and individual-level moderators in the analyzed relationship are also covered as well as how Big Five personality traits might moderate the relationships between relationship status and life satisfaction.
Specification-curve analyses were thus used to explore our findings’ robustness and assess the potential impact of model specifications. Additionally, exploratory inquiries examined links between openness, agreeableness, and relationship status. The study was guided by four preregistered hypotheses and compared to ever-partnered individuals, lifelong singles were expected to report (1) lower levels of extraversion, (2) higher levels of neuroticism, (3) lower levels of conscientiousness, and (4) lower levels of life satisfaction.
This was the work sought by administering the scale with the 10-item Big Five Inventory (BFI-10; Rammstedt & John, 2007) to the participants. Two items of this scale related to one of five personality trait dimensions known as the Big Five personality (Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism) on a 5-point Likert scale from a strongly disagree score of 1 to strongly agree score of 5. It is accompanied by suggestions recently given by Rammstedt and John (2007), additional items for agreeableness were tested but found to compromise the scale’s internal consistency.
Thus, a validity check was done by the SHARE team (see Rammstedt et al. for further supporting evidence of construct validity). More precisely, a principle component analysis with varimax rotation confirmed the Big Five factor structure when controlling for acquiescent responding, but only for the original BFI-10 items, and not when the third agreeableness item was added. So, we decided to deviate from our pre-registration and withdraw the third agreeability item. Mean scores were created for two items.
Lifelong singles reported significantly lower levels of extraversion compared to ever-partnered respondents, even when controlling for singlehood status and all covariates considered (supporting Hypothesis 1). The difference is somewhat more pronounced among those who have never had a partner or never lived with a partner. Specification-curve analysis provided consistent evidence that lifelong singles reported significantly lower conscientiousness than ever-partnered respondents (supporting Hypothesis 3).
The difference for conscientiousness was smaller than that for extraversion but consistent across the three definitions of singlehood and also across the covariates included. Lifelong singles and ever-partnered respondents did not differ significantly in their neuroticism (Hypothesis 2), with minimal difference being contingent on any of the three singlehood definitions or included covariates. Supporting Hypothesis 4, we found consistently lower life satisfaction scores from lifelong singles. The effect was pronounced with the single-item measure as opposed to the life quality measure.
Findings suggest that lifelong singlehood definitions, as well as societal factors across countries, contribute to group differences. Differences between singles and ever-partnered individuals were largest in never-partnered individuals. Further, the effect of singles self-reporting lower life satisfaction was less robust for never-married and never-cohabitating singles (with never-partnered singles excluded). Thus, lower life satisfaction in (lifelong) singles might not be predominantly driven by separated people.
In an extensive panel survey conducted with 27 nations, we came across very heavy evidence that lifelong singles in middle to older adulthood become less extraverted, conscientious, and satisfied with life as compared to ever-engineered individuals. Never-partnered people but definitely would not be talking about never-cohabitating or never-married individuals who self-reported to be lower on openness. The differences in neuroticism are moderated by country-level and individual-level variables.
This study is part of long research studying the characteristics and needs of this growing group of people, and it rather elicits multiple new research questions. Future studies should capture within-group perspectives while developing knowledge about the social support networks of lifelong singles.
Reference: Stern J, Krämer MD, Schumacher A, MacDonald G, Richter D. Differences between lifelong singles and ever-partnered individuals in Big Five personality traits and life satisfaction. Psychol Sci. 2024;35(12):1364-1381. https://doi.org/10.1177/09567976241286865
