Marital Status and Well-Being:

This paper addresses itself to three main questions: (a) To what extent does single-parenthood enable a quality of life characterized by a sense of personal well-being? (b) What are the main components of well-beinifor single mothers? (c) Which back- ground factors facilitate well- emg In smgle mothers? In order to answer these questions a Depression Adjective Check-List (Lubin, 1965) was administered to a representatwe sample of 142 widows and 120 divorcies who had been single for a minimum of four ears and who each had at least one minor child. The main fin '7 ings: (a) measures of well-being were lower for single mothers than for married mothers; (b) there were negative, but also some positive com onents of well-being: a growing sense of loneliness, of mate- rial ardship, of anxiety about parental responsibilities, on the one hand, and a sense of occupational growth, on the other hand; (c) the background factors which affect well-being were properties such as schooling, earnings, and health as well as participation in familial decisions while still married. These results were mterpreted in the context of the familistic orientations prevailing in Israeli society.