Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: singles in cohousing

[katie-henry (katie-henry]

Sharon wrote:

> No, there is a good amount of research on this and I'm sure a Google search 
> would bring it up. 
> Men are much more likely to marry again after being widowed and report much 
> more unhappiness 
> if they are not married. There are more symptoms but I forget what they are.

How about death? There is plenty of evidence that married men live longer than 
single men. Extracts from a few random hits below.

Katie
Eastern Village

-----------------------

London Telegraph
MIDDLE-AGED men who reject family life and choose to live alone are more
likely to die earlier than their married counterparts, Government figures
published yesterday reveal.

They are also significantly more prone than married men to a variety of
debilitating illnesses such as diabetes and rheumatism, said the study
released by the Office for National Statistics.

The findings come against a backdrop of research which shows that married
couples tend to enjoy better health than unmarried people.

Single men over the age of 45 are 23 per cent more likely to die earlier
than married men, according to the report, which tracked the progress of
around 250,000 men over the course of almost 30 years.

Those who were divorced carried a 31 per cent increased risk of death within
the first 10 years of divorce, while those who were widowed were 20 per cent
more likely to die sooner than others.
...
Miss Donkin said: "The raised mortality of men living alone is largely
explained by their marital status and by social factors, namely social
class, economic inactivity and living in an urban area.

"Being married has real positive effects on health through greater financial
and material resources, social support and better health-related behaviour."

------------------------

Think it's women who are dying to get married? Not exactly. It turns out that 
men who don't get married tend to die sooner than married men, according to 
research by the Center for the Study on Aging.

Statistically speaking, taking that walk down the aisle can be a major 
contributor to better health and a longer life expectancy. Married men are less 
likely to have drinking problems, commit suicide, and develop mental problems. 
They also tend to eat healthier and exercise more frequently, all of which 
increases their chances of living a longer life.

A separate study published in the American Journal of Sociology found that 88% 
of married men live to the age of 65, while only 63% of never-married men, 65% 
of divorced men, and 69% of widowed men live to that age.

--------------------------

9. IT CAN SAVE YOUR LIFE. Married people live longer and healthier lives. The 
power of marriage is particularly evident in late middle age. When Linda Waite 
and a colleague, for example, analyzed mortality differentials in a very large, 
nationally representative sample, they found an astonishingly large "marriage 
gap" in longevity: nine out of ten married guys who are alive at 48 will make 
it to age 65, compared with just six in ten comparable single guys (controlling 
for race, education, and income). For women, the protective benefits of 
marriage are also powerful, though not quite as large. Nine out of ten wives 
alive at age 48 will live to be senior citizens, compared with just eight out 
of ten divorced and single women.

In fact, according to statisticians Bernard Cohen and I-Sing Lee, who compiled 
a catalog of relative mortality risks, "being unmarried is one of the greatest 
risks that people voluntarily subject themselves to." Having heart disease, for 
example, reduces a man's life expectancy by just under six years, while being 
unmarried chops almost ten years off a man's life. This is not just a selection 
effect: even controlling for initial health status, sick people who are married 
live longer than their unmarried counterparts. Having a spouse, for example, 
lowers a cancer patient's risk of dying from the disease as much as being in an 
age category ten years younger. A recent study of outcomes for surgical 
patients found that just being married lowered a patient's risk of dying in the 
hospital. For perhaps more obvious reasons, the risk a hospital patient will be 
discharged to a nursing home was two and a half times greater if the patient 
was unmarried. Scientists who have studied immune func
tioning in the laboratory find that happily married couples have 
better-functioning immune systems. Divorced people, even years after the 
divorce, show much lower levels of immune function.