‘Marry a doctor, live healthier ’- A quantitative study of intra-dyadic health influence in Europe

• In Event: Medical Sociology Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table 23. Social Determinants of Population Health

Abstract

Background: Research on health inequalities typically treats education and socioeconomic resources as individual-level assets. Yet education is embedded within intimate partnerships, where knowledge and skills may extend beyond the individual and influence the health of others. This paper adopts an interpersonal perspective by examining whether having a medical professional spouse, representing concentrated health-related expertise, confers health advantages. We conceptualize medical education not simply as occupational status, but as a relational resource that may generate spillovers through improved health-system navigation, preventive knowledge, early symptom recognition, and informal caregiving.

Methods: Using pooled data from the European Social Survey across 37 countries, we analyze a restricted sample of socioeconomically advantaged couples to isolate medical knowledge spillovers from general educational homogamy. Multilevel models with individuals nested within countries are estimated, and inverse probability weighting (ATT) is applied to balance treated and control groups on key sociodemographic characteristics. We also test whether the association between having a medical professional spouse and subjective health varies across income levels and welfare regimes.

Results: Individuals married to medical professionals report modest but statistically significant improvements in subjective health compared to spouses of other highly educated professionals. In fully adjusted models, this corresponds to roughly a 1.5–2% increase relative to the sample mean. Although small compared to income and age gradients, the association persists within a high-health, elite subsample. Interaction analyses show limited variation across welfare regimes and age groups but suggest modest differences across income strata, consistent with diminishing marginal returns to relational health resources in wealthier households.

Conclusions: Education functions not only as an individual asset but also as an interpersonal resource embedded within partnerships. Medical expertise may operate as informal health capital, supplementing formal systems through knowledge spillovers and caregiving. However, its modest magnitude highlights the continued importance of broader structural contexts in shaping health inequalities.

Author

• Michaela Bunakova, McGill University