MARITAL-STATUS AND LONG-TERM ILLNESS IN GREAT-BRITAIN

This study investigates the relationship between health and marital st atus, focusing particularly on older persons, using data on reported l ong-term illness rates from the Samples of Anonymised Records (SARs) d rawn from the British Census. Until about age 70, long-term illness ra tes are generally lowest for those in first marriage, followed by the remarried, with intermediate values for the widowed and divorced, and highest for the single. Beyond age 75 for both sexes, single people in the private household population report the lowest illness rates, but when the institutionalized population is included single people at ol der ages no longer appear to be the healthiest group. This is because at older ages increasingly high proportions of those with long-term il lness are in institutions, disproportionately so for single people, ex plaining why such cross-overs have been found in analyses of private h ousehold populations. The health status of co-habiters is generally cl oser to the married than to other groups for both sexes.