Marriage protection and marriage selection-prospective evidence for reciprocal effects of marital status and health

Social Science and Medicine

Volumn 43, Issue 1, 1996, Pages 113-123

  Waldron, Ingrid ^a   Hughes, Mary Elizabeth ^a   Brooks, Tracy L ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA   (United States)

Author keywords

Health; Marriage; Selection effects; Women

Indexed keywords

ADULT; ARTICLE; CONTROLLED STUDY; EMPLOYMENT; FEMALE; FINANCE; HEALTH; HUMAN; HUMAN EXPERIMENT; LOWEST INCOME GROUP; MARRIAGE; NORMAL HUMAN; SOCIAL SUPPORT; UNITED STATES;

ADULT; AFRICAN AMERICANS; CAUSALITY; CONFIDENCE INTERVALS; CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDIES; EMPLOYMENT; EUROPEAN CONTINENTAL ANCESTRY GROUP; FEMALE; HEALTH STATUS; HUMANS; INCOME; MARITAL STATUS; MARRIAGE; ODDS RATIO; PROSPECTIVE STUDIES; REGRESSION ANALYSIS; SAMPLING STUDIES; UNITED STATES; WOMEN'S HEALTH;

EID: 0029977266     PISSN: 02779536     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/0277-9536(95)00347-9     Document Type: Article

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26. There were relatively few part-time workers (only 13% of the sample in 1978 and 16% in 1983). Consequently, in the regression analyses for the part-time workers, the regression coefficients had relatively large confidence intervals. To estimate the strength of the marriage protection effect within employment categories, the key parameters are the regression coefficients for marital status in the regressions which relate change in health to initial marital status within employment categories. Comparisons of these regression coefficients showed significant differences between full-time workers and women who were not employed in each follow-up interval, but no significant differences between part-time workers and full-time workers or between part-time workers and women who were not employed. Thus, there is a clear contrast between the significant marriage protection effects observed for women who were not employed and the absence of marriage protection effects for full-time workers. However, the evidence for part-time workers is inconclusive, and it remains uncertain whether there are marriage protection effects for part-time workers.
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