Health, Marriage, and Longer Life for Men

Numerous studies covering 140 years have shown that married persons tend to live longer than their unmarried counterparts. Attempts to explain this advantage have typically focused on the following questions: Does marriage have a direct protective effect, reducing the risk of mortality by providing benefits such as improved health? Or does increased longevity reflect the possibility that healthy people are more likely to get married--and therefore that married people are simply healthier from the start of their married lives?
The focus of these questions suggests that the connection between longevity and the married state can be explained only by "protection" provided through marriage or by "positive selection" into marriage because of good health. However, a third consideration may also offer insights into the relationship between marriage and health. If being married is a way of gaining increased protection against illness and death, then persons in poor health may have a greater incentive to seek these benefits by marrying and staying married. This mechanism may be termed "adverse selection" into marriage and, theoretically, could be as significant a factor as positive selection. Yet, while it is often suggested that selection may account for at least part of the marriage advantage, previous empirical work has concerned itself with positive selection and has not considered the possibility that adverse selection may also play a role.