Health Selection into Marriage among Cohabiting Couples

• In Event: 038 - Section on Sociology of Population Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 05. Demographic and Socioeconomic Associations with Physical and Mental Health

Abstract

While the associations between health and marital entrance or divorce are well documented, less is known about how health influences transitions within cohabiting relationships. In this paper, I explore how an individual’s general health affects the risk of his or her cohabitation transitioning to marriage. Using longitudinal data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, I estimate continuous-time survival models for cohabitation transitions to marriage that include the individual’s latent general health. For female respondents, poor health is associated with reduced risk of marrying the cohabitation partner, though no such health effect is found for male respondents. These results suggest health is an important predictor of cohabitation transitions, but that these transitions may only be sensitive to the health of the female partner.

Author

• Brandon G. Wagner, Princeton University