Do the Health Benefits of Marriage Depend on the Likelihood of Marriage?

• Published date: 01 June 2018
• Date: 01 June 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12471
• Author: Dmitry Tumin,Hui Zheng

D T The Ohio State University College of Medicine

H Z The Ohio State University∗

Do the Health Benets of Marriage Depend on the

Likelihood of Marriage?

Marriage promotion initiatives presume sub-

stantial health benets of marriage. Current

literature, however, has provided inconsistent

results on whether these benets would be

shared by people unlikely to marry. We inves-

tigate whether the physical and mental health

benets of marriage depend on the likelihood of

marriage. Whereas prior studies have compared

health benets of marriage across a single

predictor of marriage chances, we dene the

likelihood of marriage as a composite of demo-

graphic, economic, and health characteristics.

Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth

1979, we nd that married adults are only mod-

estly healthier than unmarried adults in both

physical and mental dimensions. People with

a higher likelihood of marriage generally do

not reap greater health benets from marriage

than their counterparts. The only exception

is that continuous marriage is more strongly

associated with improved mental health among

men who are more likely to be married.

Fewer Americans than ever are getting married,

and in some groups, cohabitation has emerged

Department of Pediatrics, The Ohio State University

College of Medicine, 700 Children’s Drive,Columbus, OH

43205 (Tumin.1@osu.edu).

∗Department of Sociology, The Ohio State University, 106

TownshendHall, 1885 Neil Ave., Columbus, OH 43210.

This article was edited by Pamela J. Smock.

Key Words: marriage, mental health, physical health, quan-

titative methodology.

as an alternative to marriage, and the proportion

of children raised by single or cohabiting rather

than married parents has increased (Cherlin,

2009; Manning & Smock, 2005). Responding to

this retreat from marriage, some scholars have

made a case for marriage promotion (Nock,

2005; Waite, 1995), prominently citing the

health benets of getting and staying married

(Waite & Gallagher,2000). Marriage promotion

initiatives target people who are less likely to

marry to extend the health benets of marriage

to this group (Manning, Trella, Lyons, & Du

Toit, 2010; Ooms & Wilson 2004; Umberson

& Montez, 2010). Yet it is unclear if marriage

would benet people who are least likely to

marry (Huston & Melz, 2004). This study

examines whether the health benets of mar-

riage are weakest for people who are least likely

to marry, taking into account marital selection

processes. We examine how a holistic measure

of the likelihood of marriage may moderate the

health benets of marriage (i.e., make marriage

more or less benecial for people who are more

or less likely to marry).

Interest in marriage has been spurred by

the American “retreat from marriage,” evinced

by falling marriage rates during the postwar

period (Cherlin, 2009). This retreat from mar-

riage has been uneven across groups dened by

race, socioeconomic status (SES), or health sta-

tus (Gibson-Davis, Edin, & McLanahan, 2005;

Tucker & Taylor, 1989; Tumin 2016). To under-

stand why marriage rates have declined faster

in certain groups, scholars have compared the

predictors of marriage between groups with

622 Journal of Marriage and Family 80 (June 2018): 622–636

DOI:10.1111/jomf.12471