Education of Divorced Individuals and Their (Ex-)Partners: Exploring the Mortality Disadvantage in Finland, 1987-2020

Lydia Palumbo , University of Turku
Cecilia Potente, Erasmus School of Health Policy and Management, Erasmus University
Marika Jalovaara, University of Turku

Divorced individuals face health and mortality disadvantages. However, whilst the role of own socioeconomic status is commonly explored, the (ex-)partner's socioeconomic resources are often not considered. This study explores how the mortality disadvantage among divorced individuals depends on their own educational characteristics as well as the ones of their (ex-)partners, using Cox models stratified by sex and parenthood. We use Finnish full-population data on married or divorced partners aged 50 or above between 1987 and 2020 (N=1,838,066). Our preliminary results indicate the existence of an educational gradient in mortality. First, low-educated Individuals experienced the highest mortality rates when they were (either currently or previously) married to similarly low-educated partners. Second, low-educated partnered with highly educated individuals had slightly lower mortality than the previous group. Finally, highly educated individuals coupled with highly educated partners had the lowest mortality rates, succeeded by those partnered with low-educated. This educational gradient was more pronounced for divorced individuals than their married counterparts. Among divorced individuals, men had by far the highest mortality and the largest socioeconomic differences, with childless men presenting the strongest socioeconomic disadvantages. Indeed, not only divorced childless men presented a significant disadvantage in mortality if they were low-educated, but also if they were highly educated and previously partnered with low-educated. These findings suggest that considering both partners’ resources is crucial to identifying vulnerable subjects and informing policies to support them during marriage and divorce. The next steps are a better identification of health selection mechanisms and the identification of causes of death.

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 Presented in Session P2. Health, Mortality, Ageing - Aperitivo