Marital status and mortality: The role of health

Abstract

Prior literature has shown that married men live longer than unmarried men. Possible explanations are that marriage protects its incumbents or that healthier men select themselves into marriage. Protective effects, however, introduce the possibility of adverse selection: Those in poor health have incentive to marry. In this paper we explore the role of health in explaining mortality and marriage patterns, and distinguish protective effects from two types of selection effects. We find adverse selection on the basis of health (unhealthy men tend to (re)marry sooner) and positive selection on the basis of unmeasured factors that both promote good health and encourage marriage.

How is mortality affected by money, marriage, and stress?

“…In part, this may be due to the reduced income, and inferior health (both physical and psychological), as a result of joblessness. Nevertheless, in column six of Table 1a, we observe an independent effect of unemployment even after controlling for both income and health status, and an additional year of unemployment is predicted to raise the probability of death by Lillard and Panis (1996) find the excess mortality of divorced men is largely associated with their inferior health, but, both for the widowed and never married, large effects continue to hold.…”

“…For both men and women, the longevity gain from marriage is also found to cumulate with the marriage's duration. Lillard and Panis (1996) note that if marriage does have protective effects then those individuals in poor health have a larger incentive to marry. This kind of adverse selection acts counter to matching selection, whereby the healthy marry.…”

Autoavaliação do estado de saúde e a associação com fatores sociodemográficos, hábitos de vida e morbidade na população: um inquérito nacional

“…Diversos estudos evidenciaram achados de maior sobrevida e menor incidência de problemas de saúde entre indivíduos casados, quando comparados aos não casados 27,28,29 . Isso parece ocorrer mais fortemente entre os homens do que nas mulheres.…”

“…O principal modelo explicativo é aquele relacionado ao estresse/suporte social 27 . O casamento também pode levar a hábitos de vida mais saudáveis 29 . Entretanto, um estudo conduzido na Espanha, numa população de trabalhadores, revelou que ser casado(a), ou morar junto com companheiro(a), não são condições necessariamente relacionadas a melhores níveis de saúde.…”

Marriage after cancer in older adulthood

“…Studies suggest that persons with poor health are less likely than others to marry and to have satisfactory and long-lasting relationships [2][3][4][5]. Cancer does not, however, necessarily have the same impact on family relations as other common illnesses.…”