Greater numbers of persons will enter retirement outside of marriage or wit
h a checkered marital history. Given the traditional health benefits of mar
riage, these changes in the population's marital life course may foretell c
hanging demands for eldercare in addition to adverse health consequences. H
ere, the authors provide new evidence on the specific aspects of health ass
ociated with marriage for a nationally representative survey of retirement
age adults. An important aspect of the authors' analysis is the assessment
of whether the benefits of marriage hold equally for women and men, major r
ace/ethnic groups, and persons with different marital histories. Data from
the Health and Retirement Survey are used to evaluate how marriage is assoc
iated with major chronic illnesses, functional limitations, and disability.
Findings document that marriage benefits health across a broad spectrum of
fatal and nonfatal chronic disease conditions, functioning problems, and d
isabilities. Moreover, benefits of marriage are widely shared across demogr
aphic groups.