Wife’s Education Level, rather than Husband’s, Is Relevant for Mortality of Both

A Swedish study has examined the individual socioeconomic factors in marriages, to determine which are responsible for greater longevity.  It’s known that the different factors – education, social class, occupation, and income – are all associated with mortality, but it’s been unclear how the factors of one partner influence the longevity of the other partner, until this study.  The results are published online in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. 

Data were taken from 15 million married or co-habiting Swedes aged 30-59 who were registered in the 1990 Swedish Census. All-cause mortality for the subsequent period (1991-2003) was collected from the Swedish National Register, and relative mortality risks were estimated for the different groups of people in the database. 

Mortality of both men and women differed according to women’s education and social class, and to men’s social class and income level.  For men, the wife’s education level was more important than his own education, when the man’s social class was included in the evaluation.  For women, on the other hand, the husband’s social class was more important for their mortality risk than their own earnings. 

The magnitudes of these effects were significant, although not large.  Men living with a woman without any high school education were 1.25 times more likely to die than men living with a college graduate.  And women married to unskilled manual laborers were 1.25 times more likely to die than women with partners in higher managerial or professional jobs.

The bottom line: men should marry a smart woman, and women should marry a rich man, if they want to live a long time.  It happens more often than you think, actually . . .