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

By Chrissie Wilson, Andrew J. Oswald. Social Science Research Network, 2005

225 citations recorded by the source corpus.

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.

Subfields: General Health Professions, Health, Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/aaaee8018ffbfee2c130f5b9f9e286df89c1c9bd

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In General Health Professions

1. Judith P. M. Soons
2. D. Storrie
3. A. Liefbroer
4. L. Cai
5. M. Eliason
6. H. Schmitz

In Health

1. Judith P. M. Soons
2. A. Liefbroer
3. L. Cai

In Social Psychology

1. Judith P. M. Soons
2. A. Liefbroer
3. L. Cai

Citations in the corpus

• Does Job Loss Shorten Life? (2009, background): “See Wilson and Oswald (2005) for a review. causally linked to the divorce, or the death of the spouse, it might still be the accumulation of life events that affect health adversely.”
• Does Marriage Make People Happy, or Do Happy People Get Married? (2006, unknown): “JEL classification: D13; I31; J12 Keywords: Division of labor; Marriage; Selection; Subjective well-being”
• The Relationship between Health and Labour Force Participation: Evidence from a Panel Data Simultaneous Equation Model (2007, background): “In other studies, it has been noticed that health and marital status are closely correlated (for example, see Wilson and Oswald (2005) and references therein).”
• Together is better? Effects of relationship status and resources on young adults' well-being (2008, background): “Advantages created by pooling resources and the economies of scale are two principles that explain the difference in well-being between people who are living together and those who are not living together (Wilson & Oswald, 2005).”