The relationship between marital status and wellbeing over the life course in South Africa.

Abstract

Marriage has historically been the key institution for household formation, and research has shown a strong relationship between marital status and subjective well-being (SWB). Married individuals have consistency reported having higher levels of SWB than non-married, with marriage providing both economic and emotional support. The objective of this study is to investigate how marital status is related to SWB within the South African context where marriage rates are low and declining, and to investigate if this relationship changes over the life course. This research analyses five waves of panel data from the National Income Dynamics Study (NIDS). The analysis of this dissertation is done using transition matrices to observe how individuals switch between the different marital statuses, ordered logit models for the regressions and the fixed effect ordered logit estimator as a test of robustness. Demographic variables such as age, importance of religion, number of children and education were controlled for. The results suggest that individuals do not frequently transition between the different marital statuses in SA, which adds to the body of literature that suggests that in SA marriage or cohabiting rates are on a decline. Results also suggest that fundamentally, there is a significant relationship between marital status and SWB with those who are married reporting higher levels SWB. The significance of this relationship varies across genders, age cohorts and races. The significance also varies according to methodology and regression analysis used. Different possible mechanisms for the observed results are discussed in this dissertation including discussions on matters marital quality.