Marital Status

Marriage and Health

There are two primary arguments for why marriage and health should be connected. First, the marital selection perspective posits that healthy people tend to marry other healthy people, whereas less healthy people are more likely to remain unmarried or become divorced, separated, or widowed. Second, the marriage protection perspective refers to married adults having access to beneficial social, psychological, and physical resources that influence physical and mental health positively. There appears to be more evidence for the protection argument than for the selection perspective. Among all adults, the mechanisms through which marriage is thought to be protective of health include healthy behaviors, social support, and economic resources.

Research indicates that marriage generally leads to an increase in healthy behaviors such as regular visits to the doctor, exercise, and eating well. In addition to healthy behaviors, researchers argue that marriage provides two health-enhancing resources: social and economic support. Adults who are married generally benefit from increased emotional support. Research indicates that married adults tend to feel loved, esteemed, and cherished. Clearly, social support is dependent on the quality of the marital relationship. Finally, married households typically have higher income than do single households.

Much research has focused on the connection of marriage to health, and one interesting corollary is the hypothesis that there may be age differences in the effects of marriage on health. Recent evidence suggests that marriage is associated with positive health outcomes across all age groups, with the strongest effects among those 18 to 44 years of age. However, [Page 347]marriage shows consistent effects on health among those age 65 years and older. For example, using National Health Interview Survey data, nationally representative data for the U.S. civilian noninstitutionalized population, C. A. Schoenborn found in 2004 that married persons age 65 years and older were less likely than their widowed, divorced, or separated counterparts, and also less likely than never-married persons and those living with partners, to be in fair or poor self-rated health. This finding is consistent across other health outcomes. For instance, widowed older adults were more than twice as likely to experience some activity limitation (45.6%) than were married older adults (28.9%). Similarly for psychological distress, older married adults were less likely to have serious psychological distress than were older adults who were not married.

Widowhood and Health

Of particular interest to researchers is the relationship of spousal loss to health. Widowhood has been shown to be significantly correlated with poor health when compared with married persons, as mentioned previously, and increased life expectancy will contribute to increasing numbers of widows in the United States over the next several decades. In addition, a continued high divorce rate coupled with the aging of the baby boom generation may also lead to increased divorce rates among older adults. It is important to explore the health effects of these life transitions separately to better understand their significance.

...