Women marrying younger men likely to die early

Women who marry men seven to nine years younger to them have a higher risk of earlier death.

In many countries, the age difference between spouses at marriage has remained relatively stable for several decades. Previous studies of the age gap between spouses with respect to mortality found that having a younger spouse is beneficial, while having an older spouse is detrimental for one's own survival. Most of the observed effects could not be explained satisfactorily until now, mainly because of methodological drawbacks and insufficiency of the data. To examine how the age difference between spouses affects their survival, researchers followed over 2 million Danish couples.

It was found that tying the knot with a significantly younger man raises a woman's risk of death by 20 percent. It was also found that marrying an older man might shorten a woman's life, and therefore the healthiest choice of a husband might be a man around a woman's own age. In contrast, the study found that men got a health benefit from choosing a younger wife. While men who married older women increased their risk for death, men who exchanged rings with a woman seven to nine years younger cut their risk of dying by 11 percent. It was also found that both men and women live longer when they get married, relative to unmarried people.

A younger spouse boosts the older partner's social and psychological frame of mind on one hand, while being there to care for him or her in old age - contributing to increased longevity for the older mate.

The above findings suggest that having a younger spouse is beneficial for men as compared to women, while having an older spouse is unfavourable for both genders.