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University of Chicago sociologist Linda Waite and Mary Elizabeth Hughes, Assistant Professor at Johns Hopkins’ Bloomberg School of Public Health conducted a study on 8652 people aged 51 to 61 to determine the health effects of divorce, remarriage, marriage, and remaining single.

The research will be published in the September issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior in the article, “Marital Biography and Health Midlife”.

The basic findings are that divorce and widowhood had a marked detrimental effect on health regardless of remarriage. Divorced and widowed who do not remarry have a worse health outlook than those who remarry.

Marriage is claimed by the researchers to bring immediate benefits to men’s health behaviors and to women’s sense of financial well being.

“Divorced or widowed people have 20 percent more chronic health conditions such as heart disease, diabetes or cancer than married people. They also have 23 percent more mobility limitations, such as trouble climbing stairs or walking a block. People who never married have 12 percent more mobility limitations and 13 percent more depressive symptoms, but report no difference in the number of chronic health conditions from married people. People who remarried have 12 percent more chronic conditions and 19 percent more mobility limitations, but no more depressive symptoms, than those who are continuously married. The impacts of marriage, divorce and remarriage on health are based on the ways in which the various illnesses develop and heal, Waite said.”

A conclusion not drawn by the researchers from the data stated is that it is equally healthy to have never married as it is to marry, divorce, and remarry.

The research makes no correlation between chronic diseases like diabetes that is genetic in origin and marriage, divorce, or never marrying. The study states that the occurrence of genetic disease was higher in divorced and remarried persons in the study group but did not consider the inherited factors that cause diabetes and heart disease at all. Mobility limitations are likewise genetic in origin according to the latest research.

Other studies have determined that the stress imposed on men by the financial needs of spouse and children are a leading cause in men’s shorter life expectancy.

The data does support this conclusion, remain single all your life and live just as long.

One inherent assumption in this study is that men are incapable of taking care of their own health. The majority of doctors are male and the majority of health gurus are male. The assumption seems to be debunked by the evidence.

http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/health/2009/07/28/2009-07-28_divorce_has_negative_effect_on_health_even_after_remarrying_study.html

http://blog.divorce-online.co.uk/?tag=linda-waite

Credit: Examiner.com | http://www.examiner.com/x-6180-Birmingham-Science-News-Examiner~y2009m8d4-Divorce-and-remarriage-bad-for-your-health