LINKED LIVES, DEPENDENT DEMISE - SURVIVAL ANALYSIS OF HUSBANDS AND WIVES

Past research has found that married individuals have substantially lo wer risks of mortality than their single counterparts. This paper exam ines how household characteristics affect spouses' risks of mortality. A paired hazard rate model is estimated and tests are made to ascerta in whether the estimated coefficients associated with risk factors dif fer between husbands' and wives' equations. Cigarette smoking, risk-av oidance behavior, poverty, and children are found to affect wives' and husbands' mortality in similar ways. Divorce, which can be interprete d as the termination of this shared household environment, is found to affect spouses differently.