Gender Differences in the Associations Between Relationship Status, Social Support, and Wellbeing

Extant research suggests that having a romantic partner has more benefits, in terms of higher subjective wellbeing, for men compared to women. The primary theoretical explanation for these wellbeing differences is that men's romantic partners tend to be their primary source of perceived social support. Yet, there is surprisingly little empirical evidence that perceived social support accounts for these gender differences. The current research used a national panel study in New Zealand (N = 20,774) to test whether perceived social support mediated the relationship between having a romantic partner and wellbeing and whether these associations were noninvariant across gender. Perceived social support partially mediated the association between having a romantic partner and higher wellbeing (life satisfaction and self-esteem), and this pathway was stronger for men than it was for women. These results extend previous research by using large-scale national panel survey data to show that the stronger association between men's relationship status and wellbeing is partially due to men's stronger connection between relationship status and perceived social support.