Psychological Wellbeing, Gender Equality and Belongingness among Older Partnered Individuals in Sweden

Psychological wellbeing is closely related to physical wellbeing and life satisfaction, and therefore crucial when studying older individuals’ situation and capacity for a full life. The study aims to find explanations of older partnered individuals’ psychological wellbeing by focusing on their gender attitudes, household division of labor and conformity to younger partnered individuals’ commonly held gender attitudes and household division of labor. Analyses are based on a subsample (n 1764) from the Swedish Generations and Gender Survey (2012/2013) including individuals aged 60-80. The analytical strategy is logistic regression with psychological wellbeing as outcome. Findings show that traditional gender attitudes are more negatively associated with psychological wellbeing than transitional (i.e., attitudes in between traditional and egalitarian attitudes) and egalitarian gender attitudes. Lower conformity to commonly held gender attitudes is also associated with lower psychological wellbeing. However, neither the household division of labor nor conformity to common household division are associated with psychological wellbeing. In later life, gender attitudes, thus, seem more important for psychological wellbeing than the household division of labor. It may be that attitudes are more important than behavior among older couples as behavior is likely more restricted by practical circumstances.