Straight Platform Politics

Marriage and Marital Loss Affect Mid-Life Health – Part 4

The Findings: the unmarried

An article by Mary Elizabeth Hughes and Linda J. Waite, recently published in the journal of the American Sociological Association, examines marriage, marital loss, and mid-life health. The findings suggest that a person’s current health in mid-life reflects not only the effects of the person’s current marital state but also the effects of the person’s marital biography. See Part 3

The authors compared those who were previously married but were not currently married with those who were currently married. They found that the previously married have “significantly worse health than the currently married.” The previously married reported more chronic conditions, more mobility limitations, and poorer self-rated health and showed more symptoms of depression.

Those who had never married, when compared to the currently married, reported more mobility limitations, worse self-rated health, and more depression symptoms. However, there were no differences in the number of chronic conditions reported by this group and the currently married.

The previously married (those not remarried) fared worse than those who had never married at   all.

Debbie Mandel, stress management specialist: A good marriage is like making a deposit in your health savings account for midlife and the golden years. (Health Behavior News Service 07/27/09)

American Sociological Association, Debbie Mandel, Journal of Health and Social Behavior, Marital Biography and Health at Mid-Life, Mary Elizabeth Hughes, depression, divorce, divorced, health, health at midlife, marital history, marital loss, marriage, married, mid-life health, mobility limitations, never married, previously married, remarried, self-rated health, unmarried, widowed

Marriage and Marital Loss Affect Mid-Life Health – Part 2

The Theory

The article “Marital Biography and Health at Mid-Life” by Mary Elizabeth Hughes and Linda J. Waite was recently published in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior, a journal of the American Sociological Association. Hughes and Waite propose that a middle-aged person’s current health reflects not only the effects of the person’s current marital state but also marital history. See Part 1

Theoretically, the connection between a person’s marital life story (biography) and health shows two different effects: a status effect and a transition effect. Status effects come from the long-term benefits/costs of being in a certain marital state for a certain length of time. Research literature has repeatedly shown that married people experience better health than the unmarried because marriage has financial, emotional, and social benefits.

Transition effects show the long-term influence of marital changes such as divorce and widowhood. Research literature also has demonstrated that the continuously married experience better health than the remarried, the previously married, and the never married. Thus, for a person in mid-life, state of health reflects both status and transition effects of that person’s marital biography.

National Institutes of Health: Almost half of all U.S. marriages end in divorce.

American Sociological Association, Linda J. Waite, Mary Elizabeth Hughes, divorce, divorced, health at midlife, marital biography, marital history, marital loss, marriage, married, mid-life health, never married, previously married, remarried, status effect, transition effect, unmarried, widowed, widowhood