The increasing mortality advantage of the married: The role played by education

Kravdal, Øystein; Grundy, Emily; Keenan, Katherine

doi:10.4054/demres.2018.38.20

Cited by 16 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 70 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Second, there would have to be excess mortality among the partnered individuals. However, the existing evidence (see Kravdal et al 2018) suggests that there is a negative relationship between marriage and mortality: protecting the married from mortality means that the non-partnered individuals are more selected, such that their life satisfaction scores are "too high"-which is the opposite of what we find in Figure 4.…”

Section: Mortalitycontrasting

confidence: 79%

The age U-shape in Europe: the protective role of partnership

Clark¹,

d’Albis²,

Greulich³

2021

Populationyearbook

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In this study, we ask whether the U-shaped relationship between life satisfactionand age is flatter for individuals who are partnered. An analysis of cross-sectionalEU-SILC data indicates that the decline in life satisfaction from the teens to thefifties is almost four times larger for non-partnered than for partnered individuals,whose life satisfaction essentially follows a slight downward trajectory with age.However, the same analysis applied to three panel datasets (BHPS, SOEP andHILDA) reveals a U-shape for both groups, albeit somewhat flatter for the partneredthan for the non-partnered individuals. We suggest that the difference between thecross-sectional and the panel results reflects compositional effects: i.e., there isa significant shift of the relatively dissatisfied out of marriage in mid-life. Thesecompositional effects tend to flatten the U-shape in age for the partnered individualsin the cross-sectional data.

show abstract

Section: Mortalitycontrasting

confidence: 79%

The age U-shape in Europe: the protective role of partnership

Clark¹,

d’Albis²,

Greulich³

2021

Populationyearbook

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…He argued that the reason for lower suicide risk among the married is that marriages provides stability, emotional support, and social integration, while separation, divorce, and widowhood rather promote social isolation [2]. The relationship between marital status and suicide risk has been reaffirmed by numerous studies [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10]. However, the selection into marriage is an important element.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Marital status, educational attainment, and suicide risk: a Norwegian register-based population study

Øien-Ødegaard

Hauge

Reneflot

2021

Popul Health Metrics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Background The presence and quality of social ties can influence suicide risk. In adulthood, the most common provider of such ties is one’s partner. As such, the link between marital status and suicide is well-documented, with lower suicide risk among married. However, the association between marital status and educational level suggest that marriage is becoming a privilege of the better educated. The relationship between educational attainment and suicide is somewhat ambiguous, although several studies argue that there is higher suicide risk among the less educated. This means that unmarried with low education may concurrently experience several risk factors for suicide. However, in many cases, these associations apply to men only, making it unclear whether they also refer to women. We aim to investigate the association between marital status, educational attainment, and suicide risk, and whether these associations differ across sexes. Methods Our data consist of Norwegian residents aged 35–54, between 1975 and 2014. Using personal identification-numbers, we linked information from various registers, and applied event history analysis to estimate suicide risk, and predicted probabilities for comparisons across sexes. Results Overall, associations across sexes are quite similar, thus contradicting several previous studies. Married men and women have lower suicide risk than unmarried, and divorced and separated have significant higher odds of suicide than never married, regardless of sex. Low educational attainment inflates the risk for both sexes, but high educational attainment is only associated with lower risk among men. Being a parent is associated with lower suicide risk for both sexes. Conclusions Higher suicide risk among the divorced and separated points to suicide risk being associated with ceasing of social ties. This is the case for both sexes, and especially those with low educational attainment, which both healthcare professionals and people in general should be aware of in order to promote suicide prevention.

show abstract

“…Although some suggest that lower rates of marriage could signal a decline in the strength of the relationship between marriage and health, this is not necessarily the case. The protective association of marriage to mortality has been found to remain high (or increase) even when marriage is becoming less prevalent, as the case has been in Norway ( Kravdal et al, 2018 , Van den Berg and Gupta, 2015 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Women’s spousal choices and a man’s handshake: Evidence from a Norwegian study of cohort differences

Skirbekk

Hardy

Strand

2018

SSM - Population Health

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Both high grip strength and being married independently relate to better functional capacity and health at older ages, but the combined effect of marital status and strength have not been investigated. Especially at older ages, declining strength can have adverse health and social consequences, where having a spouse could potentially help with everyday support and alleviate some of the negative effects of sarcopenia. We investigate how grip strength relates to being married among two cohorts of 59–71 year olds (born 1923-35 and 1936-48) in the Norwegian city of Tromsø, controlling for a broad set of health variables and sociodemographic characteristics. The baseline included N = 5009 participants of whom 649 died during follow-up. We find that for men, particularly among younger cohorts, the physically stronger are more likely to be married, but no relation is found for women. This is consistent with a hypothesis that women increasingly have selected male marital partners based on preferred individual traits, whereas men do not emphasize strength when selecting women. We find that both marital status and grip strength independently affect mortality, but there is no significant joint effect. However, the distribution of strength and marital status implies that more men than women and increasing shares of later born cohorts have a “double-burden” of low strength and a lack of support from a spouse.

show abstract

The increasing mortality advantage of the married: The role played by education

Cited by 16 publications

References 70 publications

The age U-shape in Europe: the protective role of partnership

The age U-shape in Europe: the protective role of partnership

Marital status, educational attainment, and suicide risk: a Norwegian register-based population study

Women’s spousal choices and a man’s handshake: Evidence from a Norwegian study of cohort differences

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About