Special Collection 2 - Article 12 | Pages 305–330  

Increasing excess mortality among non-married elderly people in developed countries

By Tapani Valkonen, Pekka Martikainen, Jenni Blomgren

This article is part of the Special Collection 2 „Determinants of Diverging Trends in Mortality“

Abstract

This article analyses changes in marital status differences in mortality from approximately 1970 to 1995 among men and women aged 65-74 in ten developed countries (Belgium, Canada, Denmark, England and Wales, Finland, France, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden). Data were obtained from the United Nations Demographic Yearbooks and national statistical sources.
According to the results there has been a trend towards increasing excess mortality among single men compared to married men and single, divorced and widowed women compared to married women in most western European countries and Canada in the 1980s and 1990s. This has been brought about by a more rapid decline in mortality among married persons and a slower decline or even an increase among non-married persons. In Japan the excess mortality of non-married men and women decreased.

Author’s Affiliation

• Tapani Valkonen - Helsingin Yliopisto (University of Helsinki), Finland EMAIL
• Pekka Martikainen - Helsingin Yliopisto (University of Helsinki), Finland EMAIL
• Jenni Blomgren - Terveyden ja hyvinvoinnin laitos (National Institute for Health and Welfare), Finland EMAIL

Other articles by the same author/authors in Demographic Research

The effects of socioeconomic and cultural characteristics of regions on the spatial patterns of the Second Demographic Transition in Finland
Volume 19 - Article 61

Characteristics of urban regions and all-cause mortality in working-age population: Effects of social environment and interactions with individual unemployment
Volume 17 - Article 5

The changing socioeconomic composition of the Finnish prison population
Volume 51 - Article 27

Contribution of smoking-attributable mortality to life-expectancy differences by marital status among Finnish men and women, 1971-2010
Volume 36 - Article 8

The role of smoking on mortality compression: An analysis of Finnish occupational social classes, 1971-2010
Volume 32 - Article 20

Age-specific fertility by educational level in the Finnish male cohort born 1940‒1950
Volume 31 - Article 5

Educational differences in all-cause mortality by marital status: Evidence from Bulgaria, Finland and the United States
Volume 19 - Article 60

Educational differentials in male mortality in Russia and northern Europe: A comparison of an epidemiological cohort from Moscow and St. Petersburg with the male populations of Helsinki and Oslo
Volume 10 - Article 1

Monitoring of trends in socioeconomic inequalities in mortality: Experiences from a European project
Special Collection 2 - Article 9

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