Singlehood
The Good Deaths of Those Who Never Marry
Lifelong single people are most likely to die pain-free and at peace.
Updated March 8, 2026 Reviewed by Lybi Ma
People who are single and want to stay that way are often taunted with scare stories about what will happen to them toward the end of their life—they will grow old alone, they will die alone, and all the rest. Same for people who have no children. But is the quality of the end of their lives really worse for those who never marry (or never have kids) than it is for those who are married, remarried, divorced, or widowed (or who have grown children)? We now have an answer, and it is not at all what those dire warnings predicted.
Boston University social scientists Kafayat Mahmoud and Deborah Carr analyzed data from 12 years (2011-2022) of nationally representative samples of U.S. Medicare beneficiaries who were 65 or older when they died. The 39,012 deceased people had a proxy who was familiar with their end-of-life experiences and reported on them after their death. In their paper published in the Journals of Gerontology in 2025, “Social relationships and end-of-life quality among older adults in the United States,” Mahmoud and Carr reported that people who had never married “generally fared as well as, if not better than, married persons.” They also found that people who had no children were no different from parents in the quality of their life in their last month.
What is a good death?
Scholars have been studying what constitutes a “good death” for some time. The Institute of Medicine describes it as “free from avoidable distress and suffering for the patient, family, and caregivers, in general accord with the patient’s and family’s wishes, and reasonably consistent with clinical, cultural, and ethical standards.”
In the Mahmoud and Carr study, proxies were asked about the overall quality of care the deceased person had received, their anxiety and sadness, their pain and any difficulty breathing. They also reported on whether the person’s care was patient-focused (did the patient get the kind of care they wanted; was the health care well-coordinated) and whether the patient received dignified care—treated with respect and had their personal needs well met.
The proxy who reported on the deceased person’s quality of life in their last month was usually a family member—spouse, adult child, or other relative. That was true for 96 percent of the married and remarried people, 89 percent of the divorced and widowed people, and 77 percent of the people who had never married. The others had a paid care worker as their proxy: 4 percent of married and remarried, 11 percent of divorced and widowed, and 23 percent of the never-married people.
The deceased who had never been married had an especially good death emotionally, and in their lack of pain, and the quality of their personal care.
The good death: Emotions
During the last month of their lives, people who had never been married were, by far, the least troubled by sadness or anxiety. Sixty-two percent of them experienced no problems with sadness or anxiety. In the other marital status groups, between 41 percent and 44 percent experienced no problems.
Of those who did experience problems with sadness or anxiety, the lifelong single people, by far, were the least likely to have those difficult emotional experiences go unmanaged—just 13 percent. For the other marital status categories, between 25 percent and 38 percent had sadness or anxiety that went unmanaged.
In sum, those who had never been married were most likely to have died in peace.
The good death: Pain
People who had never been married were most likely to be free of pain during the last month of their lives: 47 percent had no pain. Though that was the highest number for any of the groups, it only differed statistically significantly from those who were divorced: 37 percent of them reported no pain.
Of those who did experience pain, the lifelong single people were least likely to have their pain go unmanaged. The 11 percent of the lifelong single people whose pain went unmanaged was significantly lower than the 16 percent of married people or 22 percent of divorced people.
The good death: Personal care
The researchers measured personal care by asking whether the dying person’s personal care needs, such as bathing, dressing, and changing bedding, were taken care of as well as they should have been. Overall, they were, but especially so for the lifelong single people—86 percent received that quality of care. That was significantly better than the married people (82 percent), remarried (80 percent), divorced (75 percent), and widowed (82 percent).
People who have children are no more likely to have a good death than those who don’t
Professors Mahmoud and Carr were somewhat surprised to find that parents were no more likely to experience a good end-of-life experience than people who had no children. Their research did not explore the reasons for that finding. They speculated that at the end of life, adult children can be “a source of both support and conflict.” Perhaps they could have added that having children is no guarantee that they will show up for you.
Why were the people who never married especially likely to experience a good death?
People who stay single are especially likely to form and maintain friendships and other personal relationships. In Single at Heart, I describe single people as having “the ones” rather than The One. “The ones” may be there for the single people when they need them at the end of their lives. Mahmoud and Carr noted this social support and also pointed to lifelong single people’s self-sufficiency. The life stories that the single at heart shared with me included examples of that self-sufficiency; because they knew they were not going to be depending on a spouse in later life, many did careful planning in advance.
The people who had never married were more likely to have a paid care worker as their proxy. Mahmoud and Carr suggested that their “training and experience may enable them to effectively advocate for or arrange high-quality care at the end of life.”
One of the people who shared their life story with me for Single at Heart was Carol, who fully and joyfully embraced her single life and used her freedom to pursue her dreams. She had no children, and though she married and divorced when she was young, she had spent the rest of her life living single. Carol survived several recurrences of cancer until there was nothing more the doctors could do for her. From Single at Heart:
“In one of the last emails she sent to me, as she lay dying, Carol told me that she was asked if she wanted to talk to a psychologist. She said that she didn’t think she needed to, but did so anyway. Afterward, the psychologist agreed with Carol—she did not need a therapist. 'She said that I was a fully self-actualized person,' Carol told me. 'I was thrilled. That was my goal in life and I have achieved it.'”
What the Mahmoud and Carr study underscores is that Carol’s experience of knowing she had lived a good life and was at peace may not be so unusual for single people or people who do not have children.
Facebook image: Geber86/Shutterstock
