Publication type
Journal Article
Authors
Publication date
September 15, 2014
Summary:
There has been a large empirical literature on the effect of marriage on health, but scant empirical evidence on the effect of cohabitation on health, although cohabitation is increasingly common. We contributed to this literature in three ways. First we explicitly modeled cohabitation distinct from marriage. Second, we included lagged health in our models to address the dynamic process of health and health-related selection into relationships. Extant literature has failed to control for lagged health risking omitted variable bias. Rather, it has controlled for general unobservable heterogeneity using fixed effects models that have relied on limited variation in relationship status over time to identify the effect of relationship status on health. Third, we employed a continuous health index that aids in estimation and inference of dynamic models. Using the Blundell and Bond dynamic panel data estimator and 18 years of the British Household Panel Survey of nearly 18,000 adults, we found that being in a relationship is good for health, but the benefits are not unique to marriage. Our finding that cohabitation is as beneficial as marriage for health was good news for health policy as changing social norms and economic instability have delayed or impaired family formation.
The data used in this research were made available through the ESRC Data Archive. The data were originally collected by the ESRC Research Center on Micro-social Change at the University of Essex. Neither the original collectors of the data nor the Archive bear any responsibility for the analysis nor the interpretations presented here.
Published in
Journal of Family and Economic Issues
Volume and page numbers
Volume: 35 , p.295 -312
DOI
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10834-013-9371-2
ISSN
10580476
Subjects
Notes
Not held in Research Library - bibliographic reference only
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