Małgorzata Mikucka
(Mannheim University & DEMO/UCLouvain)
Oliver Arránz Becker
(Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg)
Christof Wolf
(GESIS - Leibniz-Institut für Sozialwissenschaften & Mannheim University)
Does Marriage Really Protect Heath? An Intraindividual Analysis of Health Dynamics Around and After Transition to First Marriage
This analysis studies the protective effect of marriage on physical health, mental health, and self-rated health in Germany. We use German GSOEP data and fixed effects models with individual slopes (FEIS), which control for individual pre-marital health trajectories, and fixed effects models with group slopes (FEGS), which allow investigating self-selection on health trajectories. Our results provide little evidence of a protective effect of first marriage on health. Compared to the health trajectory of the never married, self-rated health and physical health seem to decline upon the transition into marriage, but improve in the long run. However, the cumulative protective effect is statistically significant only among men for self-rated health. Mental health improves in the short run in the period surrounding the transition into marriage, but the results are significant only among women. Analysis of selection effects suggests that men with less sustainable pre-marital health have a lower chance of marrying.