AGE VARIATIONS IN THE SUICIDE RATES AND SELF-REPORTED SUBJECTIVE WELL-BEING OF MARRIED AND NEVER MARRIED PERSONS

Previous research has established that people who never marry have hig her suicide rates and lower self-reported subjective well-being than t he married. The present study examines how the differences between: (1 ) never married persons who live alone, (2) never married cohabitees; and (3) currently married people, vary between age groups. The relevan ce of such age variations for status integration theory and theories o f marital selection is discussed. Summing up results from previous stu dies of suicide rates, the relative position of the never married is f ound to be most unfavourable for people in their 30s and 40s; the diff erences are smaller among the young and the old. Data on self-reported well-being are taken from a large-scale survey of the population of o ne of Norway's 19 countries (n = 51 000), and are analysed by means of ordinary multiple regression. With regard to single people who were m arried or who never married, the results are largely consistent with t he suicide findings; the advantage of marriage increases until about 4 0 years of age, then declines. The survey data also provide informatio n about unmarried cohabitation, which seems to be more or less equival ent to marriage in most age groups. Neither status integration theory nor any other single theory of marriage effects or marital selection s eems to be able to account for these findings in a satisfactory way.