Public Release: 21-Apr-2016
Surprising result in new study of marital status, gender, and frailty
Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News
The well-accepted association between marital status, health, and risk of functional impairment in older individuals is generally true, but a new study on frailty found unexpected, gender-specific differences. Notably, widowed women had a lower risk of frailty than did married women, according to the study published in Journal of Women's Health,
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predicted that unmarried elderly people would have a higher risk of becoming frail than their married peers. Marital status has traditionally been associated with reduced risk of disability and death. For this study, the researchers evaluated a group of men and women >65 years of age for more than 4 years.
The authors' prediction held true for elderly men, with those never married or widowed having a higher risk of developing frailty. However, widowed women had a significantly lower risk of becoming frail than did married women, according to the findings reported in "Marital Status and Frailty in Older People: Gender Differences in the Progetto Veneto Anziani Longitudinal Study". The authors identify the factors contributing to frailty that were more influenced by marital status.
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http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/jwh.2015.5592
As shown in Tables 1 and 2, widowed individuals were significantly older than the other groups. After adjusting for age, widowed men and women who had never married had significantly lower BMI values than the other groups. When between-groups demographic differences were considered, individuals who had never married were better educated and physically more active, while married people were more often current smokers and had higher SPPB scores. Widowed participants more often lived alone and had higher monthly incomes than the married or never married groups. Both widows and widowers were more depressed than the other groups. Married people had the highest scores for independence in IADL and, for women, in ADL too. As for comorbidities, both genders in the married group showed less cognitive impairment and pre-frailty status than the widowed and unmarried. There was a higher prevalence of OA and fractures among widowed men and single women, while singles of both genders had the lowest percentages of cancer.
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sociological studies have suggested that unmarried status is more disadvantageous for men than for women, and that marriage protects the male gender more than the female one.3,29 In fact, the presence of a wife may bring material benefits for men in terms of household management and healthcare, whereas women are more likely to feel stressed and find their role restrictive and frustrating.30 Since women generally have a longer lifespan than men, married women may also suffer from the effects of caregiver burden, since they often devote themselves to caring for their husband in later life.31–33 These factors might contribute to the lower risk of depression in unmarried women, in accordance with the report from Gurin et al., who found that women had more marital problems and less wellness in marriage than men.30 The same study also found that single women experienced less discomfort than single men, greater job satisfaction and higher activity levels at work, and a lower risk of social isolation, since single women maintained stronger relationships with family or friends.30 Consistently with this picture, the higher educational level and better economic status seen among the single women in our study may well reflect a social condition that would promote a greater psychological and physical well-being. Finally, widows cope better than widowers with the stress deriving from the loss of a partner and widowhood, with a significant increase in the risk of depression only in the latter. Many studies have shown that women are less vulnerable to depression than men in widowhood,9,34 probably because they have greater coping resources and are better able to express their emotions.35–37 These aspects may help to explain the lower risk of exhaustion seen in single women, who are likewise more socially integrated than single men, and consequently less exposed to frailty.
[Also, woman are more nurturing than men. Many men will happily sit around watching television, expecting their wife to do all the housework. Even a woman who misses her dead husband can feel a sense of relief from the burden of taking care of him.]
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