Deviations From Standard Family Histories and Subjective Wellbeing at Older Ages

Abstract

Life course research emphasizes that health and wellbeing at older ages are influenced by experiences occurred in the previous stages of life. Several studies have focused on fertility and partnership histories and health at older ages, but fewer have examined subjective wellbeing (SWB), especially using a holistic approach. Another strand of the literature demonstrated that non-standard family behaviors negatively influence SWB. We contribute to these strands of the literature by examining the association between non-standardness of family histories and SWB at older ages. We argue that individuals who experienced non-standard trajectories have been exposed to social sanctions throughout their life course which could exert negative long-term influence on their SWB.We apply sequence analysis and optimal matching on retrospective data from the seventh wave of the Survey of Health Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) to calculate the degree of non-standardness of family histories between age 15 and 49. Subsequently, we estimate linear regression models to assess the association between non-standardness of family histories and older people s SWB. Our results show a negative association between non-standardness of family histories and SWB, which is stronger for lower educated individuals and in Southern European countries.