Mortality differentials by marital status: an international comparison.
Although the greater longevity of married people as compared with unmarried persons has been demonstrated repeatedly, there have been very few studies of a comparative nature. We use log-linear rate models to analyze marital-status-specific death rates for a large number of developed countries. The results indicate that divorced persons, especially divorced men, have the highest death rates among the unmarried groups of the respective genders; the excess mortality of unmarried persons relative to the married has been generally increasing over the past two to three decades; and divorced and widowed persons in their twenties and thirties have particularly high risks of dying, relative to married persons of the same age. In addition, the analysis suggests that a selection process is operating with regard to single and divorced persons: the smaller the proportion of persons who never marry or who are divorced, the higher the resulting death rates.
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Office of Population Research, Princeton University, New Jersey 08544.
Goldman
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D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D004243:Divorce; D005060:Europe; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan; D016014:Linear Models; D008297:Male; D008393:Marriage; D008875:Middle Aged; D009026:Mortality; D009656:North America; D012307:Risk Factors; D015983:Selection Bias; D012737:Sex Factors; D012847:Single Person; D013624:Taiwan; D006113:United Kingdom