A happy and a successful marriage is the mantra for a long life, as people who never marry have the greatest chance of an earlier death, a study has revealed.
The study showed that while older age and poor health were the strongest predictors of death, a surviving marriage was strongly associated with a longer life.
The findings of the research are based on national census and death certification data, involving almost 67,000 adults in the USA between 1989 and 1997.
After taking into account age, state of health, and several other factors likely to influence the findings, the study showed that those who had been widowed, divorced or separated were much more likely to die.
But those who had never been married had a whopping 58% death risk than their peers who were married and living with their spouses.
The research further revealed that never married 'penalty' was larger for those in good health, and smallest for those in poor health. It was also found out that the death risk was greater among men than women, and never married men between the ages of 19 and 44 were more than twice as likely to die as their married male peers of the same age.
For the younger age group, the primary causes of death among those who had never married were infectious disease and "external" factors, whereas among the middle aged and elderly, the main causes were cardiovascular and chronic diseases.
The findings of the study are in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.
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