How Does Marriage Affect Physical and Psychological Health? A Survey of the Longitudinal Evidence

Chris M Wilson and Andrew Oswald
Additional contact information
Chris M Wilson: University of East Anglia

The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) from University of Warwick, Department of Economics

Abstract: This paper examines an accumulating modern literature on the health benefits of relationships like marriage. Although much remains to be understood about the physiological channels, we draw the judgment, after looking across many journals and disciplines, that there is persuasive longitudinal evidence for such effects. The size of the health gain from marriage is remarkable. It may be as large as the benefit from giving up smoking.

Keywords: mortality; health; marriage; happiness; longitudinal (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 31 pages
Date: 2005
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea, nep-ltv and nep-soc
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (66)

Downloads: (external link)
https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/workingpapers/2008/twerp728.pdf

Related works:
Working Paper: How Does Marriage Affect Physical and Psychological Health? A Survey of the Longitudinal Evidence (2005)
Working Paper: How Does Marriage Affect Physical and Psychological Health? A Survey of the Longitudinal Evidence (2005)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wrk:warwec:728

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) from University of Warwick, Department of Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Margaret Nash ().