There are more than 61 million married couples in the United States. That is 122 million people, not including their children. A new study from Canada found that marriage is especially good for older men’s health and is also pretty good for women too.
A new study that followed over 7,000 Canadians, middle-aged and older, for approximately three years found that married men or men who became married during the study period were twice as likely to age optimally compared to their never-married male peers.
Married women, and single women who had never married, aged better than divorced or widowed women the study found. This from The WebMD archives:
There are many reasons to choose wisely and carefully when picking a spouse, but here’s one you may not know: New research suggests that a good marriage is good for your health — and that a bad one can be a real heartbreaker.
Married people tend to be happier and also richer. Married couples save and invest more than unmarried people, including those who are cohabitating.
Indeed, married couples are considerably better off than their single peers – as long as they take the phrase ‘till death do us part’ literally.“Married people are more likely to buy homes or make other investments together than people who are co-habiting.” In essence, knowing the relationship is for life inspires a greater readiness to invest and plan for the future.Cohabiting couples, on the other hand, tend to save and invest less, while keeping their finances separate. In this sense at least, they are not as fully committed to one another as married couples.
Marriage is a pretty good antipoverty program, although there are critics who argue otherwise, saying:
Marriage is no “panacea for poverty,” according to a Center for American Progress (CAP) report by Shawn Fremstad…But just because putting a ring on it won’t cure poverty, that doesn’t mean the converse is true: namely, marriage plays no role in the fight against poverty. In truth, marriage is one important tool, among others—from high-quality education to wage subsidies for low-income jobs—in the fight against poverty. It’s this qualified contribution that marriage can make in the fight against poverty that is largely overlooked in the CAP report and Rosen’s article.
Increasingly, positively marriage is correlated with social status. Families in higher social strata — those with four-year college degrees — are more likely to be married.
Now, 84 percent of kids whose moms have four-year degrees live with married parents. Less than 60 percent of kids whose moms don’t have a college degree live with married parents. “There has been a huge class divide in these trends,” Kearney told me. “And we can’t afford to ignore them anymore.”“Adults who have lower levels of education and earnings are less likely to get married and raise their children in two-parent homes,” she writes. “Their kids grow up with fewer resources and opportunities, and they don’t do as well in school as their peers from married, higher-income families. . . . Social mobility is undermined, and inequality persists across generations.”
Indeed, The Hertiage Foundation points out that marriage is the greatest tool against child poverty.
Child poverty is an ongoing national concern, but few are aware that its principal cause is the absence of married fathers in the home. Marriage remains America’s strongest anti-poverty weapon, yet it continues to decline. As husbands disappear from the home, poverty and welfare dependence will increase, and children and parents will suffer as a result.
And yet, government antipoverty programs discourage marriage by reducing benefits when two low-income people marry compared to remaining single. This occurs due to the way the federal poverty level (FPL) is calculated. The FPL is used to establish eligibility for most means tested anti-poverty programs. When a couple forgoes marriage, they are far more likely to later split up. Years ago, I wrote about how Obamacare discouraged marriage. It’s just one of many government programs that rewards single people more than couples.
Marriage improves health, wealth, and wellbeing. It reduces child poverty and boosts the resources kids need to grow and develop into well rounded adults. It is unfortunate that government policy that is intended to reduce poverty is arguable one source of it.