Older people are ‘happier’ whether they have children or not, but ‘happiness’ is impacted by health and childhood attachment

Hadley, Robin ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4254-7648, Newby, Chloe and Barry, John (2018) Older people are ‘happier’ whether they have children or not, but ‘happiness’ is impacted by health and childhood attachment. In: British Society of Gerontology 47th Annual Conference, 4 July 2018 - 6 July 2018, Manchester, UK. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

Childlessness has increased substantially in recent decades. Although the psychological consequences for women have been explored, those of men have been little researched. This study asked the views of heterosexual men and women, aged over 50, on parenthood and childlessness. An online survey of 235 men and 157 women aged 50 years and over was conducted. The sample had a mean age (SD) for men of 76.9 (+ 7.6) and for women 77.0 (+ 7.4). Men and women who were childless due to ‘not finding the right person’ had the lowest Positive Mindset Index (PMI) scores. The variable that had the greatest impact on mental health was Health Related Quality of Life. After controlling for seven covariates using ANCOVA, the main effects of PMI for Sex and Reasons for having children or not, and their interaction, were non significant. Post-hoc LSD tests (2-tailed) showed that the Childfree men had borderline significantly higher PMI than men who were parents (p<.071) and men who were Childless (p<.063). Although the subgroups were small, making it difficult to detect statistically significant results, the findings arguably shed new light on the mental positivity of older people who don’t have children. We believe the findings might inform improved ways of delivering psychological therapy services to people experiencing distress due to childless-by-circumstance.