Is Marriage Good for Your Health and Longevity?
Is it true that married people live longer? And do men benefit more from marriage than women? Here’s what experts say.
For decades, studies have suggested that married people are healthier and live longer than unmarried people, but whether marriage actually benefits your health depends on many factors.
“There are multiple ways marriage can benefit people’s health and longevity,” says Gunnur Karakurt, LMFT, PhD, a licensed marriage and family therapist at University Hospitals. “It’s not necessarily the marriage itself, but the quality of the relationship that matters most.”
How Supportive Relationships Protect Health
People who are married tend to live about two years longer than unmarried people. Research suggests there are several factors that may contribute to health and longevity in strong, supportive marriages, including:
- Healthier lifestyles: Dr. Karakurt says one reason married couples in healthy relationships may live a little longer is that they support each other in making choices that are good for their health. “They often influence each other’s daily habits, including what they eat, how they sleep and how they take care of themselves,” she says. “They also help keep each other accountable.”
- Better emotional support: Good relationships can also help people cope with stress, which can improve both health and mental health, says Dr. Karakurt. “There is more empathy and support,” she says. “When something is going on, you can talk to your partner and work together to find solutions to problems that come up.” That kind of support in strong, healthy relationships can make people feel more stable, both physically and emotionally.
- Larger social networks: Along with support from each other, support from family and friends can help reduce stress and feelings of isolation for married couples. “When stressful situations arise, the couple has more people to lean on for help and emotional support,” says Dr. Karakurt. Strong social connections can also help protect overall well-being by lowering the risk of conditions, such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes, inflammation, cognitive decline, anxiety and depression.
- Increased economic advantages: Being married typically involves living together and sharing resources, which can help make living expenses more affordable for couples. Research also suggests that people who are healthier and more financially secure tend to marry partners who are also healthier and wealthier. These shared advantages may increase access to healthcare and create other opportunities to maintain good health over the long term.
Why Men Get More Benefits From Marriage Than Women
Though recent studies suggest the gap may be narrowing, men seem to gain more benefits from being married than women. “As in any social science, it’s very difficult to give a definite answer about why men benefit more from marriage on average,” says Dr. Karakurt. “Some studies suggest that men may receive more emotional support from a spouse, along with encouragement to maintain healthy habits, which may contribute to better health and a longer life.”
Women often engage in more “invisible labor,” including things like caregiving, maintaining the household, coordinating the couple’s social life and managing the emotional aspects of the relationship. This is work that often goes unrecognized. “It may depend on who is in the caregiving role, but women tend to take on more caregiving, so if they are not receiving the same level of care from their husbands, they’re less likely to see as much of a benefit from the marriage.”
The Quality of the Relationship Matters
Dr. Karakurt emphasizes that while marriage is often linked to better health and longevity, those benefits depend largely on the relationship being healthy and supportive. “If there’s a lot of conflict in the marriage and that conflict isn’t being managed well, or if there is abuse or distrust, the marriage is not going to be beneficial – it’s going to be harmful,” she says.
“If arguments go unresolved, if a spouse is being criticized, demeaned, isolated or mistreated in other ways, then the outcome for people who are married is usually much worse than for those who are single.” She adds that there are studies showing that heart disease is much worse for women in those situations, as well as research suggesting that hostile interactions interfere with wound healing.
If you are struggling in your relationship, you and your partner can work with a couples therapist to reduce stress, learn how to communicate better, solve problems in healthy ways and address any other issues that may be troubling you. “Improving your relationship quality can help boost your happiness and have widespread benefits, whether you’re married or not,” says Dr. Karakurt.
“We now have more cohabitating couples and less rigid gender roles, so there are greater expectations for relationships,” she says. “Future research may continue to highlight the importance of relationship quality, alongside the structural and legal protections that marriage can provide.”
Related Links
The board-certified psychiatrists, licensed psychologists and marriage and family therapists at University Hospitals offer a wide range of services to help couples work through relationship challenges, strengthen communication and build healthier, more supportive partnerships.
Marriage and men’s health
Both married men and unmarried men of a certain age, may remember the tune, if not the words:
Love and marriage, love and marriage,
Go together like a horse and carriage.
This I tell you, brother,
You can’t have one without the other.
Much has changed, obviously, since the horse and buggy days. And when it comes to marriage, there have also been enormous changes since Sammy Cahn penned his romantic lyrics in the Ozzie and Harriet era. Many people find love without getting married, and many marriages turn loveless and hostile as divorce rates soar. Single parenting is now common, and society is becoming increasingly comfortable with various patterns of cohabitation.
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A Guide to Men’s Health Fifty and Forward
The many social, economic, psychological, and spiritual ramifications of these huge changes have been the topic of much discussion and debate, and more will follow. Without treading into these deep waters, though, it’s also useful to ask how marriage itself affects men’s health.
Married men and mortality
A major survey of 127,545 American adults found that married men are healthier than men who were never married or whose marriages ended in divorce or widowhood. Men who have marital partners also live longer than men without spouses; men who marry after age 25 get more protection than those who tie the knot at a younger age, and the longer a man stays married, the greater his survival advantage over his unmarried peers. But is marriage itself responsible for better health and longer life?
Although it’s hard to be sure, marriage seems to deserve at least part of the credit. Some have argued that self-selection would skew the results if healthy men are more likely to marry than men with health problems. But research shows the reverse is true: unhealthy men actually marry earlier, are less likely to divorce, and are more likely to remarry following divorce or bereavement than healthy men.
Another potential factor is loneliness; is the institution of marriage linked to better health, or is it simply a question of living with another person? Although studies vary, the answer seems to be a little of both. People living with unmarried partners tend to fare better than those living alone, but men living with their wives have the best health of all.
Numerous studies conducted over the past 150 years suggest that marriage is good for health. More recently, scientists have begun to understand why married men enjoy better health than their single, divorced, and widowed peers. But before we turn to the why, let’s look at how marriage affects specific diseases, including America’s leading killers, cardiovascular disease and cancer.
