Parental Death and Subjective Age: Indelible Imprints from Early in the Life Course?*

Abstract

Past research suggests that sustaining a young identity helps adults maintain a greater sense of well‐being. The experience of subjective aging, however, is not a spontaneous phenomenon, but stems from lifelong developmental experiences. Drawing from writings on the life course and self‐concept, I consider how parental death in childhood shapes subjective age in adulthood. To examine the effects of maternal and paternal death on subjective age, I employ the Midlife Development in the United States Study (MIDUS). A series of linear regression analyses indicates that maternal death during childhood is associated with an older subjective age in adulthood, death of a father does not have a similar influence on subjective age, and that the effect on subjective age is stronger if maternal death occurred during childhood than during other periods of the life course. The findings highlight interconnections between timing of transitions in the life course, linked lives, and the development of self‐concept. Subjective age in adulthood seems to hinge on important biographical experiences from childhood, such as parental death, though the processes differ by the gender of the deceased parent.