Lebens- und Familienformen - Tatsachen und Normen

2. EUROPÄISCHER FACHKONGRESS FAMILIENFORSCHUNG, ARBEITSGRUPPE 1 „LEBENSFORMEN OHNE KINDER“
Differences in life satisfaction and attitude towards single life
Life satisfaction is measured with four items from the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS), developed by
Diener et al. (1985). These items tap the cognitive, evaluative dimension of subjective well-being. Two examples
of the items used, are ‘My life is ideal in most aspects’ and ‘Until now, I got the most important things I
expected from life’. Answers could range from ‘agree not at all’ (1) to ‘agree completely’ (7). These items
formed a good scale at all three waves of the panel study (a>.80). Scores were rescaled to a range from 0 to
10, with a higher score indicating a higher level of satisfaction with life.
To assess the attitudes of young adults towards life without a partner and living with a partner, they were
asked to indicate on a seven-point scale how they felt about ‘being married’, ‘unmarried cohabitation’, and
‘having no partner relationship’. Answers ranged from ‘negative feeling’ (1) to ‘positive feeling’ (7). To measure
a respondent’s preference for living with a partner, a two-step procedure was used. Since some young
adults might prefer marriage and others might have a preference for unmarried cohabitation, their highest
score on the two items asking for their evaluation of marriage and cohabitation was used as an indication of
their feelings towards living with a partner. Next, their score on the item about ‘having no partner relationship’
was subtracted from this score. The resulting score, labelled ‘partner preference’, indicates the extent to
which respondents prefer living with a partner to not having a partner. The range of this score is from -6 to
+6, with a higher score indicating a stronger preference towards living with a partner.
To get a first indication of differences between young adults who have no partner, have a partner outside
the household, or live with a partner, results of Multiple Classification Analyses of life satisfaction and
partner preference for all three survey waves are presented in Table 3. In these analyses, controls for gender
and birth cohort were added. However, results for partner status are presented only. 4
Table 3: Differences in life satisfaction and partner preference according to partner status
(based on Multiple Classification Analyses).
Life Satisfaction
Partner Preference
Partner Status Wave 1 Wave 2 Wave 3 Wave 1 Wave 2 Wave 3
No Partner 6.60 6.61 6.32 2.45 2.35 1.90
Partner Outside 7.23 7.07 6.94 3.47 3.21 2.97
Household
Living with Partner 7.88 7.93 7.83 3.81 3.93 3.36
Source: PSIN data.
Young adults without a partner report significantly lower levels of life satisfaction than young adults who live
together with a partner. Young adults with a partner outside the household occupy on intermediate position.
The differences between the partner status categories is relatively large. Additional analyses (not shown here)
show that these differences exist at all ages, except among those aged 18 in wave 1.
The same pattern of results is observed for the partner preference variable. Although young adults in all
three partner statuses generally prefer living with a partner to not having a partner, the partner preference of
young adults who have no partner is much lower than that of young adults who live with a partner. Again,
respondents who have a partner outside the household occupy an intermediate position.
These results show marked differences in life satisfaction and partner preference between young adults
with and without a partner. However, just like the Eurobarometer data presented earlier, these cross-sectional
data do not allow us to disentangle the causal links between partner status, and life satisfaction and partner
preference. This issue will be dealt with in the next section by taking advantage of the panel nature of our
data.
4 The full results can be obtained from the author on request.
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ÖIF – MATERIALIENSAMMLUNG HEFT 4 „LEBENS- UND FAMILIENFORMEN – TATSACHEN UND NORMEN“