To live longer

Leafing through the latest statistics, I was struck by the fact that the average life expectancy in the developed world is still about twice that in the developing world. Japan, for example, has an average life expectancy of 82.6 years while Mozambique or Sierra Leone is stuck at 42 years. And it seems that women on average live anywhere from 4-7 years longer than men in the developed world while the difference drops to almost zero in the poorest of the developing countries. India straddles the two worlds—here women, despite conventional wisdom, still live about 3 years longer than men!

Recent studies (http://www.americanvalues.org/Marriage_Brief_1.pdf) have shown that married people live longer those who are single or divorced. Or it may be that it just seems longer to the married man. The protective power of marital status, however, is not small. Overall, nonmarried women have mortality rates about 50 percent higher than wives, and nonmarried men have mortality rates about 250 percent higher than husbands.

In simple terms what does this really mean? Take two middle-aged men with the same race, income and family background, except that one is married and the other is single or divorced. What are the relative odds that either man will live at least to age 65? The answer: Nine out of ten husbands, but only six out of ten single men. In other words, absent remarriage, an extra three out of ten men lose their lives when they lose their wives.

For women, the life-protecting benefits of marriage are also apparent, but not as powerful. Nine out of ten middle-aged wives will make it to age 65, compared to about eight out of ten single and divorced women.

While the above date comes from studies in the US, it is also true for most developed countries, where single, divorced or widowed men of any age are about twice as likely to die as married men, and nonmarried women face risks about one and a half times as great as married women. A study led by Linda Waite, a sociologist at the University of Chicago, confirmed that happily married couples tend to live longer than unwed individuals. Married men were found to live, on average, 10 years longer than non-married men, and married women lived about four years longer than non-married woman.

While the above facts seem to be incontrovertible, the question still remains why?

It seems that the married lifestyle encourages good health habits. Married people are less likely to hang out in bars late at night, get into fights and auto accidents, or become crime victims. Married people remind each other—or nag each other-- about important health habits: eating right, getting enough sleep, wearing seatbelts, cutting back on smoking or alcohol, and visiting the doctor regularly. Married people also seem to behave in healthier ways even when they are not reminded to do so constantly by a spouse. In addition, people behave more responsibly when they know that someone else depends on them than they do when they view themselves as autonomous individuals.

In the US almost half of women over age 65 are widows and will be widows for an average of 14 years. Since women outlive men by nearly six years, there are 4-5 times more widows than widowers but they tend to live longer after the death of a spouse. According to gerontologists, widowers struggle more than widows to live without a spouse. Growing up during an era when men relied on their wives to be housekeeper, caretaker, and their main source of emotional support, an expanding generation of elderly widowers find they've lost both their best friend and their social planner, leaving them isolated. ''For women, it's a seamless thing. For men, it can be a big change,'' said Jan E Mutchler, professor of gerontology at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. When men lose a spouse, ''they lose the person they rely on most.''

So to live longer, get married and look after your spouse !

his Brief