Is It True That Single Women Live Longer Than Married Women?

This is sort of true, and sort of not.

Before I get further into my answer I want to give a little bit of background on this question. This came from an event that I was doing where we were talking about what advice we could give college students. Specifically about what they could do now, that could help them live longer, healthier lives.

For the record, I am repeating this story with the consent of everyone involved.

So we're going through this list, and someone says, “tell women not to get married.” Which caused some laughter, and some confusion.

This idea that single women live longer than married women has been floating around social media recently. But the data on this can vary greatly.

Also floating around social media is the idea that single women are happier than married women. Like with marriage, the data on this varies from study to study.

Some studies specifically compared single women with no kids to women married with kids. This means it might not be the marriage per se which is the issue. Instead, the difference in happiness might be having kids with a husband who may or may be parenting in a way that’s supportive.

While I may not be able to give a specific answer to this question, I think it’s important that we’re having discussions about this.

For so long we told people that the goal in life was to get married and have kids. And then everyone will live happily ever after.

Now we’re having discussions about the fact that some people don’t want children. And their decision to be childless leads to them being happier.

And we’re talking about the invisible labor that many women put into a relationship. Labor that can take a toll on both their health and their happiness. This has led to some women choosing not to be in a relationship with a male partner who doesn’t contribute to the relationship. Or not to stay in one where that’s happening.

And the reason that I pointed out male partner is that it gives me the perfect opportunity to talk about one more problem in a lot of the studies that are out there. And that’s that they focus specifically on male/female relationships. They often don’t include women who are in relationships with other women, or those with nonbinary partners.

There’s at least one study that indicates that women who are married to other women live longer than straight couples. There’s also research that says the opposite.

So I can’t give a concrete answer to the question. But I love that we’re having discussions about it. And that we’re giving space for people to think and talk about the fact that there is no one path when it comes to parenthood and relationships.

In the end, finding happiness is going to look different for every person.

Until next time, be safe, and have fun!

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