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Mortality differentials by marital status: an international comparison
Demography
|May 1, 1990
Summary
Married individuals live longer, but divorced people, especially men, face higher mortality rates. This trend of increased risk for unmarried groups has worsened over recent decades.
Area of Science:
- Demography
- Public Health
- Sociology
Background:
- Established link between marriage and increased longevity compared to unmarried individuals.
- Limited comparative studies exist on mortality differences across various unmarried statuses.
Purpose of the Study:
- To comparatively analyze marital-status-specific death rates across developed countries.
- To investigate trends in excess mortality among unmarried populations relative to married individuals.
- To examine age-specific mortality risks for divorced and widowed individuals.
Main Methods:
- Utilized log-linear rate models for analysis.
- Analyzed marital-status-specific death rates from a large dataset of developed countries.
Main Results:
- Divorced individuals, particularly men, exhibit the highest death rates among unmarried groups.
- The mortality gap between unmarried and married populations has widened over the past 20-30 years.
- Young divorced and widowed adults (20s-30s) show significantly elevated mortality risks compared to their married peers.
- Evidence suggests a selection effect: lower proportions of never-married or divorced individuals correlate with higher death rates within these groups.
Conclusions:
- Divorce is associated with substantially increased mortality risk, especially for men.
- The protective effect of marriage on longevity appears to be diminishing for unmarried groups.
- Early-life marital disruption poses a particularly severe mortality hazard.