Singletons fast closing health gap with married people: Study

Hui Liu, a lead researcher on the project,”The Times They Are a Changin’: Marital status and Health Differtials from 1972 to 2003” said sociologists since the 1970s have emphasized that marriage benefits health more so for men than for women.

The findings of Liu and fellow researcher Debra Umberson of the University of Texas at Austin will appear in the September issue of theJournal of Health and Social Behavio.

The researchers analyzed National Health Interview Survey data from 1972 to 2003 and found that while the self-reported health of married people is still better than that of the never-married, the gap has closed considerably.

The trend is due almost exclusively to a marked improvement in the self-reported health of never-married men.

Liu said that may be partly because never-married men have greater access to social resources and support.

Further, the research shows that the health status of the never-married has improved for all race and gender groups examined: men, women, blacks and whites.

The health of married women also improved, while the health of married men remained stable.

In view of the politicians and scholars continued debate on the value of marriage with some groups arguing for policies and programmes to encourage marriage, the research highlights the complexity of this issue and suggests that encouraging marriage in order to promote health may be misguided.

In contrast, the self-reported health for the widowed, divorced and separated worsened from 1972 to 2003 relative to their married peers.

This held true for both men and women, although the widening gaps in health between the married and the previously married groups are more pronounced for women than for men.