Does Marriage Increase Your Life Expectancy?

Marriage is the first non-biological factor that has been shown to improve life expectancy. Some of the explanations for this are because married people tend to have better mental and emotional health and take fewer risks with their health. Also, marriage provides more social and material support. Married couples are able to support one another through the ups and downs of job changes, family emergencies, and death. They also support each other in terms of needs - social, physical and material needs. Married couples are able to talk about their stresses with each other as well as provide each other the essentials of life, such as a home, car, and clothes. Single people often have to find close friends for the same support that a spouse can provide. Also, single people have to support themselves all on their own.

The difference in health between single people and married people is narrowing. This doesn't mean that if you are married, that is going to improve your life expectancy. There is something about people who are married that improves their life expectancy, or more precisely, there was something about the people that were married in the 1970s that improved life expectancy. Now there are people who live together but are not married that can experience the same benefits of marriage without the certificate. This complicates research because this type of relationship was not studied when research on marriage and life expectancy were done. We will compare the differences between the research done in the '70s and the research that has been done today.

Back in the '70s, men who were never married tend to have the lowest life expectancy, but now they are closing in on their married counterparts. The difference researchers believe is due to the better access to support and health resources. Now men are taking more responsibility for their health, not needing a wife to insist they go to the doctors as it was in the '70s.

Compared to the '70s, widows are reporting poorer health than their married counterparts. Back in the '70s they reported their health the same as their married counterparts, and now they report that it is 7 percent worse. No one knows why they are reporting poorer health over 30 years later. Many guess that in the '70s, there was more of a community and extended family to help them, many living with their children. Now they tend to be more isolated.