There are more than 61 million married couples in the United States. That is 122 million people, not including their children. A new study by the University of Toronto found marriage is especially good for older men’s health and is pretty good for women, too.
Married women, and single women who have never married, age better than divorced or widowed women, the study found.
Another study, “The Importance of Being Married,” from the WebMD archives, suggests the quality of a marriage can make a difference in the level of health. Bad marriages tend to make blood pressure go up and increase the risk of developing diabetes.
Losing a spouse can impact health. A phenomenon called “broken-heart syndrome” can occur after the death of a spouse because stress hormones can negatively impact heart health.
Married people tend to be happier and richer. Married couples save and invest more than unmarried people, including those who are cohabitating. World Finance, in an article titled “For richer for poorer: the economics of marriage” notes married people who are serious about “till death do us part” tend to buy homes and comingle investments, which can relieve financial stress.
Increasingly, marriage correlates with social status. Families in higher social strata, those with four-year college degrees, are more likely to be married. Eighty-four percent of kids who grow up in two-parent married households have moms with a college degree.
Marriage Is Antipoverty
The Heritage Foundation points out in a 2012 report marriage is the greatest tool against child poverty: when husbands disappear, poverty and welfare dependency increase.
Unfortunately, government antipoverty programs discourage marriage by reducing benefits when low-income people marry. This is caused by the way the federal poverty level (FPL) is calculated, which is used to establish eligibility for most means-tested anti-poverty programs. When a couple forgoes marriage, however, the two are far more likely to split up later.
Years ago, I noted that Obamacare discourages marriage. Subsidies dropped for people who got married, because their household income “increased their rank as a percent of the FPL,” I wrote. That is still true, and it is just one of many examples of government programs treating single people better than couples.
Marriage improves health, wealth, and well-being. It reduces child poverty and boosts the acquisition of resources kids need to grow and develop into well-rounded adults. It is unfortunate that government policy that is intended to reduce poverty is arguably one source of it.
Devon Herrick (devonherrick@sbcglobal.net) is a health care economist and policy advisor to The Heartland Institute. An earlier version of this article appeared on the Goodman Institute Health Care Blog. Reprinted with permission.