Marriage and Health: Selection, Protection, andAssortative Mating

• Nezih Guner ^[1] ; Yuliya Kulikova ^[2] ; Joan Llull ^[3]
  1. [1] CEMFI
  2. [2] Banco de España
  3. [3] UAB

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• Localización: Documentos de Trabajo ( CEMFI ), Nº. 12 (CEMFI Working Paper No. 1612, December 2016), 2016
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) and the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS), we analyze the health gap between married and unmarried individuals of working-age. Controlling for observables, we find a gap that peaks at 10 percentage points at ages 55-59. If we allow for unobserved heterogeneity in innate health (permanent and age-dependent), potentially correlated with timing and likelihood of marriage, we find that the effect of marriage on health disappears below age 40, while about 5 percentage points difference between married and unmarried individuals remains at older (55-59) ages. This indicates that the observed gap is mainly driven by selection into marriage at younger ages, but there might be a protective effect of marriage at older ages. Exploring the mechanisms behind this result, we find that better innate health is associated with a higher probability of marriage and a lower probability of divorce, and there is strong assortative mating among couples by innate health. We also find that married individuals are more likely to have a healthier behavior compared to unmarried ones. Finally, we find that health insurance is critical for the beneficial effect of marriage.