Propensity to Marry and Heterogeneity in the Health Benefits of Marriage

• In Event: 054 - Section on the Sociology of the Family Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 07. Families and Health

Abstract

Marriage is associated with good health, but the protective effect of marriage varies widely. Prior studies have revealed heterogeneity in the marriage effect across specific socioeconomic, demographic, and health factors. These factors predict the likelihood of marriage and moderate the beneficial effect of marriage on health. Therefore, heterogeneity in the marriage effect across one factor may be confounded by other factors. This study investigates differential marriage effects on health across levels of the propensity to marry, thereby mitigating both the pre-marriage selection bias and the marriage effect heterogeneity bias under the assumption of ignorability. We test for heterogeneity in the marriage effect on self-rated health and a scale of depressive symptoms using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1979 cohort. We find that the marriage effect is not significantly associated with the propensity to marry, and that this effect is similar between people who marry and people who do not. When marriage propensity is defined as a composite of socioeconomic, demographic and health factors, it does not moderate the health benefits of marriage, supporting the view that marriage is at least as beneficial for people who are less likely to marry as for those more likely to marry.

Authors

• Hui Zheng, The Ohio State University

• Dmitry Tumin, The Ohio State University