Marriage is health? Many researches have already looked into the matter, claiming that this institution has beneficial effects on the heart, life expectancy and even mental health. But what is it really? A news study conducted by a sociology researcher at Ohio State University and published in the journal Social Science Quarterly demonstrates today the opposite.
Cultural changes involved?
Dmitry Tumin, who conducted this research, relied on the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, a longitudinal survey of American households. He was thus interested in the health of 12,373 people married for different periods of time (up to four years, from five to nine years, then 10 years or more) and born during different decades (between 1955 and 1964, between 1965 and 1974, then between 1975 and 1984). Participants were asked to regularly rate their overall health on a scale ranging from “excellent” to “poor”.
The researcher found that the health benefits of marriage deteriorated over time: these benefits were only seen in couples who had been married for more than 10 years. And among people married between 1975 and 1984, that is to say the last decade studied, these benefits were completely attenuated.
For Dmitry Tumin, this phenomenon is explained in particular by cultural changes which have caused the “protective effects” of marriage to disappear. He explains that couples are getting married later and later and that the wedding has become a source of anxiety: “With more demands at home and work, and less time spent together, married couples today see marriage more as a source of conflict and stress than as something which protects their health”, concludes the researcher.
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