CAUSINEQ Mortality inequality by marital status in Belgium

1. CAUSINEQ Mortalityinequality by marital status in Belgium Paul Majérus et Jean-Paul Sanderson Centre for DemographicResearch– UCL paul.majerus@uclouvain.be

2. Marital inequalities of mortalityTheircharacteristics • Excess mortality of unmarriedcompared to married • Single, Divorced and Widowed(Brockmann et Klein, 2004; Berntsen, 2011) • Couple or single (Valkonen et al., 2004; Drefalh, 2012) • Excessmortality of remarriedcompared to married • The gaps are wider in young adults and decrease with age (Williams et Umberson, 2004) • The differences increase with time in some age classes • The gaps are generally larger in men than in women(Manzoli et al., 2007; Murphy et al., 2007)

3. Marital inequalities of mortalityThe factors of inequalities • Selectioneffects(Hu et Goldman, 1990) • Direct selection : Health • Indirect selection : Socioeconomic factor, riskybehaviours, … • Protective effects(Jaffe et al., 2000; Rendall et al., 2011; Berntsen, 2011) • Financial protection • Social protection • Support, integration, social control • Psychological protection • Against stress and isolation • Impact of stressfulevents

4. Data • Data • National Register (1990 – 2015) • Sociodemographic data : marital status, living arrangement, date of birth, date of death, region of residence, nationality, ... • Deathcertificiates (1991 – 2012) : date and cause of death • Census (1991, 2001, 2011) • Socioeconomic data: educationlevel, employementstatus, type of housing, self ratedhealthstatus • Exhaustive, individual and continuous data over a 25 yearsperiod

5. ResultsMarital mortalityinequalities

6. Results • Methods • Poisson Regression • Dependant variable : Death • Independants variables : • Marital status • Household • Region • Health • Housing • Age

7. Results Non-significantresults

8. Results Non-significantresults

9. Results Non-significantresults

10. Marital inequalities of mortalityDiscussion and conclusion • Main results • Excessmortality of unmarriedcompared to married • Inequalities are larger in youngadults • The excessmortality are larger in men than in women • Biggerexcessmortality in unmarried men living alonethanunmmariedwomen living alone • But biggerexcessmortality in unmmariedwomen in couple thanunmarried men in couple

11. Thankyou for your attention