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Marital Quality, Health, and Aging: Gender Equity?

¹ The University of Texas, Austin.
² The Ohio State University, Columbus.

Address correspondence to Dr. Debra Umberson, Chair, Department of Sociology, Burdine Hall 336, University of Texas at Austin, 1 University Station, A 1700, Austin, TX 78712. E-mail: umberson{at}mail.la.utexas.edu

Abstract

 Recent research shows that poor marital quality adversely affects trajectories of physical health over time and that these adverse effects are similar for men and women. These studies test the possibility of gender differences in vulnerability to poor marital quality, but they fail to take into account possible gender differences in exposure to poor marital quality. We present longitudinal evidence to show that although the impact of marital quality on physical health trajectories may be similar for married men and women, generally lower levels of marital quality experienced by women may translate into a sustained disadvantage for the health of married women over the life course. These findings frame the call for renewed theoretical work on gender and marriage that takes into account both gender similarity in response to marital quality as well as gender differences in the experience of marriage over the life course.