Sleep, Marriage and Social Engagement Among Older Adults

Abstract

We empirically examine how marriage and marital quality are related to sleep characteristics as measured by actigraphy and self-report in a nationally–representative probability sample of community-dwelling older adults, the National Social Life, Health and Aging Project (NSHAP). We find that married individuals experience better quality sleep compared to the unmarried. The associations are stronger for actigraphy sleep characteristics than for survey responses about sleep. Among the married, better relationship quality was associated with better sleep quality. Using data from the subset of married respondents from whom we have actigraphy data for both members of the couple, we find significant within-couple correlations for bedtimes, waking times and sleep duration estimated from actigraphy, but not for actigraphy measures of sleep quality (fragmentation and WASO). Further, we find that wives’ mental health, but not physical health, influences their husbands’ sleep. However, husbands’ mental and physical health had no influence on their wives’ sleep. These results point to a potential role for sleep in well-established disparities in health by marital status among older adults.