Research has documented that loneliness is a major public health concern, particularly for older adults in the United States. However, previous studies have not elucidated the mechanisms that connect family economic adversity to husbands’ and wives’ loneliness in later adulthood. Thus, using prospective dyadic data over 27 years from 254 enduring couples, the present study investigated how spouses’ mastery, as an intraindividual process, and marital functioning, as a couple process, link midlife family economic adversity to spouses’ later-life loneliness. The results provided support for three linking life course pathways: an adversity-mastery-loneliness pathway, an adversity-marital functioning-loneliness pathway, and a mastery-marital functioning-loneliness pathway. The results also showed spousal contemporaneous dependencies in mastery and loneliness. These findings demonstrate the persistent influence of midlife family economic adversity on husbands’ and wives’ loneliness nearly three decades later and elucidate linking mechanisms involving mastery and couple marital functioning. Findings are discussed as they relate to life course and family systems theories. Implications address multiple levels including national- and state-policies and couple-level clinical interventions.

中文翻译：

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掌握和婚姻过程：在持久婚姻中将中年经济逆境和晚年孤独感联系起来的机制

研究表明，孤独是一个主要的公共卫生问题，特别是对于美国的老年人。然而，以往的研究并没有阐明将家庭经济逆境与成年后期丈夫和妻子的孤独感联系起来的机制。因此，本研究使用来自 254 对持久夫妻超过 27 年的前瞻性二元数据，调查了配偶作为个体内部过程的掌握和作为夫妻过程的婚姻功能如何将中年家庭经济逆境与配偶晚年的孤独感联系起来。该结果为三个相互关联的生命历程路径提供了支持：逆境-掌握-孤独路径、逆境-婚姻功能-孤独路径和掌握-婚姻功能-孤独路径。结果还表明，配偶同时期对掌控和孤独感有依赖性。这些发现证明了近三年后中年家庭经济逆境对夫妻孤独感的持续影响，并阐明了掌握和夫妻婚姻功能的联系机制。讨论了与生命历程和家庭系统理论相关的研究结果。影响涉及多个层面，包括国家和州政策以及夫妻层面的临床干预。