Work, marital status, and heart disease

Abstract

Longitudinal data from the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Survey and its follow-up were used to analyze the effects of marriage and work roles and changes in these roles on the incidence of coronary heart conditions in a sample of 3,097 middle-aged women. Education, age, family income, race, and number of children were included as covariates. The data indicated that women who became unmarried, younger women, and better educated women were at relatively low risk, whereas women who left the labor force and women who were homemakers were at relatively high risk for the conditions. Additional analyses were done on employed women. These findings support the "well-worker effect" but cast doubt on the belief that marriage is always beneficial to health.