The Married Have Dramatically Lower Death Rates

Want to lower your chances of dying? Get married. That's one interpretation of a National Center for Health Statistics' analysis of death rates by marital status. Take a look...

Age-adjusted deaths per 100,000 population aged 25 or older by marital status, 2019

   747.0 deaths among the married

1,324.0 deaths among the divorced

1,423.2 deaths among those who have never married

1,627.0 deaths among the widowed

People who have never married as well as the divorced and widowed are just about twice as likely to die in a given year than people who are married. Don't forget, these are age-adjusted figures, a calculation which controls for the age distribution of each population—such as the older average age of widows and the younger average age of the never married.  

Not only is the overall death rate much lower for the married, but the death rate is lower for all 10 leading causes of death. Among the 10 leading causes of death, the biggest difference in death rates between the married and the unmarried is for unintentional injuries, a category that includes drug overdoses. The NCHS reports that the death rate for unintentional injuries is about three times higher for the unmarried than for the married. Cancer has the smallest disparity in death rates between the married and the unmarried, with cancer death rates for the unmarried 29 to 39 percent higher than for the married. 

Not only are death rates lower for the married, but the gap has been growing. Between 2010 and 2019, the death rate for married people fell 11 percent, NCHS reports. The rate fell only 3 percent for the divorced and the never married during those years. For the widowed, the death rate increased 4 percent between 2010 and 2019. 

What accounts for the dramatically lower death rate of married people? "Health research has persistently demonstrated lower mortality for married adults compared with unmarried adults," states the NCHS. "The mortality advantage for married adults has been attributed to either selectivity in entering marriage (that is, healthier people are more likely to marry) or health-protective effects of marriage, or a combination of the two."

Keep this in mind the next time your spouse nags you about taking your pills or calling a doctor.

Source: National Center for Health Statistics, Death Rates by Marital Status for Leading Causes of Death: United States, 2010–2019