IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v64y2007i1p64-76.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Marital status, intergenerational co-residence and cardiovascular and all-cause mortality among middle-aged and older men and women during wartime in Beirut: Gains and liabilities

Author

Listed:
  • Sibai, Abla M.
  • Yount, Kathryn M.
  • Fletcher, Astrid

Abstract

Studies from the West have shown an increased risk of mortality with various indicators of social isolation. In this study, we examine associations of marital status and intergenerational co-residence with mortality in Lebanon, a country that suffered wars and atrocities for almost 16 years. Using data from a retrospective 10-year follow-up study (1984-1994) among 1567 adults aged 50 years and older in Beirut, cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality rates (per 1000 person-years) were computed for men and women separately. Age-adjusted Mantel-Haenszel rate ratios (RR) and their 95% confidence intervals (CI) were estimated, and associations were examined using multivariate Poisson regression analysis. Most men (91.3%) were married at baseline, in contrast to only 55.4% of women. Compared to men, women were more likely to be living in one- and three-generation households and with a married child at baseline. While widowhood was associated with an increased risk of all-cause mortality among men only, being never married was associated with a higher CVD mortality risk among men and women. The presence of an adult married child was associated with a significantly higher mortality risk for men and women, even after adjusting for household socioeconomic indicators, marital status, lifestyle variables or pre-existing health-related conditions (hypertension, cholesterol, and diabetes) at baseline. The popular belief that co-residence with adult children reflects greater support networks and an avenue for old age security may not be a valid presumption in the Lebanese context during times of war.

Suggested Citation

  • Sibai, Abla M. & Yount, Kathryn M. & Fletcher, Astrid, 2007. "Marital status, intergenerational co-residence and cardiovascular and all-cause mortality among middle-aged and older men and women during wartime in Beirut: Gains and liabilities," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 64-76, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:64:y:2007:i:1:p:64-76
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(06)00408-4
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Yuanreng Hu & Noreen Goldman, 1990. "Mortality Differentials by Marital Status: An International Comparison," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 27(2), pages 233-250, May.
    2. Goldman, Noreen & Hu, Yuanreng, 1993. "Excess mortality among the unmarried: A case study of Japan," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 533-546, February.
    3. Robert Haveman & Barbara Wolfe, 1995. "The Determinants of Children's Attainments: A Review of Methods and Findings," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 33(4), pages 1829-1878, December.
    4. Julie DaVanzo & Angelique Chan, 1994. "Living arrangements of older malaysians: Who coresides with their adult children?," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 31(1), pages 95-113, February.
    5. Davis, M.A. & Neuhaus, J.M. & Moritz, D.J. & Segal, M.R., 1992. "Living arrangements and survival among middle-aged and older adults in the NHANES I epidemiologic follow-up study," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 82(3), pages 401-406.
    6. Rahman, Omar & Foster, Andrew & Menken, Jane, 1992. "Older widow mortality in rural Bangladesh," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 89-96, January.
    7. Goldman, Noreen & Korenman, Sanders & Weinstein, Rachel, 1995. "Marital status and health among the elderly," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 40(12), pages 1717-1730, June.
    8. Jersey Liang & Joan Bennett & Neal Krause & Erika Kobayashi & Hyekyung Kim & J. Winchester Brown & Hiroko Akiyama & Hidehiro Sugisawa & Arvind Jain, 2002. "Old Age Mortality in Japan," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 57(5), pages 294-307.
    9. Mostafa, Golam & van Ginneken, Jeroen K., 2000. "Trends in and determinants of mortality in the elderly population of Matlab, Bangladesh," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 50(6), pages 763-771, March.
    10. Seeman, Teresa E. & Berkman, Lisa F., 1988. "Structural characteristics of social networks and their relationship with social support in the elderly: Who provides support," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 26(7), pages 737-749, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Yannakoulia, Mary & Panagiotakos, Demosthenes & Pitsavos, Christos & Skoumas, Yannis & Stafanadis, Christodoulos, 2008. "Eating patterns may mediate the association between marital status, body mass index, and blood cholesterol levels in apparently healthy men and women from the ATTICA study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 66(11), pages 2230-2239, June.
    2. Min Gao & Yanyu Li & Shengfa Zhang & Linni Gu & Jinsui Zhang & Zhuojun Li & Weijun Zhang & Donghua Tian, 2017. "Does an Empty Nest Affect Elders’ Health? Empirical Evidence from China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 14(5), pages 1-20, April.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Moisés H. Sandoval & Marcela E. Alvear Portaccio, 2022. "Marital Status, Living Arrangements and Mortality at Older Ages in Chile, 2004–2016," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(21), pages 1-15, October.
    2. Eran Shor & David Roelfs & Misty Curreli & Lynn Clemow & Matthew Burg & Joseph Schwartz, 2012. "Widowhood and Mortality: A Meta-Analysis and Meta-Regression," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 49(2), pages 575-606, May.
    3. Ribar, David C., 2004. "What Do Social Scientists Know About the Benefits of Marriage? A Review of Quantitative Methodologies," IZA Discussion Papers 998, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Manzoli, Lamberto & Villari, Paolo & M Pirone, Giovanni & Boccia, Antonio, 2007. "Marital status and mortality in the elderly: A systematic review and meta-analysis," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 77-94, January.
    5. Zimmer, Zachary & Martin, Linda G. & Lin, Hui-Sheng, 2005. "Determinants of old-age mortality in Taiwan," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 60(3), pages 457-470, February.
    6. Mavisakalyan, Astghik & Otrachshenko, Vladimir & Popova, Olga, 2021. "Can bribery buy health? Evidence from post-communist countries," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(4), pages 991-1007.
    7. Wilson, Sven E., 2012. "Marriage, gender and obesity in later life," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 10(4), pages 431-453.
    8. Donrovich, Robyn & Drefahl, Sven & Koupil, Ilona, 2014. "Early life conditions, partnership histories, and mortality risk for Swedish men and women born 1915–1929," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 60-67.
    9. Shor, Eran & Roelfs, David J., 2015. "Social contact frequency and all-cause mortality: A meta-analysis and meta-regression," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 76-86.
    10. Megan Beckett & Marc N. Elliott, 2002. "Does the Association Between Marital Status and Health Vary by Sex, Race, and Ethnicity?," Working Papers 02-08, RAND Corporation.
    11. Heeju Sohn & Stefan Timmermans & Pamela J Prickett, 2020. "Loneliness in life and in death? Social and demographic patterns of unclaimed deaths," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(9), pages 1-17, September.
    12. Shor, Eran & Roelfs, David J. & Bugyi, Paul & Schwartz, Joseph E., 2012. "Meta-analysis of marital dissolution and mortality: Reevaluating the intersection of gender and age," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 75(1), pages 46-59.
    13. Vseteckova J & Mahon A & Boyle G & Jones K & Garcia R, 2020. "Frailty and Spousal/Partner Bereavement in Older People- A Systematic Scoping Review Protocol," Biomedical Journal of Scientific & Technical Research, Biomedical Research Network+, LLC, vol. 24(4), pages 18396-18399, January.
    14. Pandey, Manoj K., 2008. "Association between marital status and health: examining the role of age and gender," MPRA Paper 15923, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Pandey, Manoj K., 2008. "Ageing, marital status and its health implications: evidences from India," MPRA Paper 15370, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Rasmus Hoffmann, 2005. "Does the socioeconomic mortality gradient interact with age? Evidence from US survey data and Danish register data," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2005-020, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    17. Manoj K Pandey, 2009. "Labor Force Participation among Indian Elderly: Does Health Matter?," Working Papers id:1987, eSocialSciences.
    18. Virginia Zarulli, 2016. "Unobserved Heterogeneity of Frailty in the Analysis of Socioeconomic Differences in Health and Mortality," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 32(1), pages 55-72, February.
    19. Michael Rendall & Margaret Weden & Melissa Favreault & Hilary Waldron, 2011. "The Protective Effect of Marriage for Survival: A Review and Update," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 48(2), pages 481-506, May.
    20. Katalin Kovács, 2005. "Proportionate or concentrated burdens? Health of widowed, divorced and nevermarried in Hungary," Demográfia English Edition, Hungarian Demographic Research Institute, vol. 49(5), pages 104-122.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:64:y:2007:i:1:p:64-76. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.