Lifestyle Interdependence in Later Life: Actor and Partner Effects on Well-being in Older Couples

Abstract

Research on lifestyle patterns in later life has predominantly examined isolated behaviors rather than integrated configurations of daily activities. Moreover, despite increasing partner interdependence in older adulthood, lifestyle research has maintained an individual-level focus, overlooking how activity patterns may operate as couple-level phenomena. This study integrates person-centered and dyadic perspectives to examine lifestyle configurations among older European couples and their associations with subjective well-being. Using longitudinal data from older couples, latent class analysis identified four distinct lifestyle patterns: Activity-Limited, Employment-Dominated, Home-Based Recreation, and Socially Engaged. These classes were systematically differentiated by sociodemographic, economic, health, and family role characteristics. Actor-partner interdependence models revealed that all three active lifestyle patterns predicted higher subsequent subjective well-being compared to the Activity-Limited pattern, with Socially Engaged showing the strongest effects. Significant partner effects emerged across all classes, demonstrating that one partner's lifestyle contributed to the other's subjective well-being beyond individual effects. Partners showed moderate lifestyle interdependence, particularly for Socially Engaged patterns. These findings highlight that lifestyle patterns operate as relationally-embedded phenomena in later life, with implications for both partners' subjective well-being.