Marriage seems to be more beneficial for men. Recently, it was reported that men who are older than their wives saw their life expectancy increase by 11%. However, the trend is quite different for women.
A team at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Germany published the results of a study in the journal Demography.
According to researchers, a woman who is seven to nine years older than her husband finds her life expectancy decrease by 20% and the result is the same if the woman is younger than her husband.
This is the opposite of what experts previously thought. They thought that with a younger partner, people lived longer, but this is not the case and the causes are not clear.
For couples where the woman is older, one reason to explain a shorter life expectancy for women is that such unions go against social norms. There is more pressure placed on the marriage from other people in their life.
The ideal solution is for a woman to pick a partner of the same age. Nevertheless, marriage is generally more beneficial than not. A previous study found that married people live longer than those who are not, and this includes both sexes.