Do Married People Really Live Healthier?

Dana Hamplova, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic

Many empirical studies demonstrate that married individuals are healthier and have lower mortality rates than those who are single, divorced or widowed. It is also often argued that the healthier lifestyle of married couples contributes to a decreased risk of mortality. Despite the plausibility of the life-style explanation, the direct empirical evidence on the differences in the health-related behaviors among married and unmarried individuals is mixed. The goal of the current paper is to test a hypothesis whether the association between marital status and health-related behaviors is mediated by the prevalence of the given behavior in the society. The empirical analysis uses the ISSP 2011 data providing information on smoking, binge drinking, exercising, and vegetable intake. It shows that with the increasing prevalence of the behavior the gap between married and unmarried individuals narrows.