Patterns of widowhood mortality.

OBJECTIVES: Becoming widowed is a known risk factor for mortality. This article examines the magnitude of, explanations for, and variation in the association between widowhood and mortality. Previous research on widowhood mortality has revealed variation by socioeconomic status (SES), in that SES is not protective in widowhood, and by gender, such that men's mortality increases more than women's mortality after the death of spouse. METHOD: Using data from the Health and Retirement Study, we estimated Cox proportional hazard models to estimate the association between widowhood and mortality. RESULTS: Becoming widowed is associated with a 48% increase in risk of mortality. Approximately one third of the increase can be attributed to selection, in that those who become widows are socioeconomically disadvantaged. In contrast to previous studies, SES is protective for widows. Widowhood mortality risk increases for men if their wives' deaths were unexpected rather than expected; for women, the extent to which their husbands' death was expected matters less. DISCUSSION: Widowhood's harmful association with mortality show how strongly social support and individual's health and mortality are related. These findings support the larger literature on the importance of social support for health and longevity.

Intergenerational transmission of reproductive behavior during the demographic transition.

New evidence from the Utah Population Database (UPDP) reveals that at the onset of the fertility transition, reproductive behavior was transmitted across generations - between women and their mothers, as well as between women and their husbands' family of origin. Age at marriage, age at last birth, and the number of children ever born are positively correlated in the data, most strongly among first-born daughters and among cohorts born later in the fertility transition. Intergenerational ties, including the presence of mothers and mothers-in-law, influenced the hazard of progressing to a next birth. The findings suggest that the practice of parity-dependent marital fertility control and inter-birth spacing behavior derived, in part, from the previous generation and that the potential for mothers and mothers-in-law to help in the rearing of children encouraged higher marital fertility.

Mortality Differentials and Religion in the U.S.: Religious Affiliation and Attendance.

Using data from the Health and Retirement Study, I examine the relationship between adult mortality and religious affiliation. I test whether mortality differences associated with religious affiliation can be attributed to differences in socioeconomic status (years of education and household wealth), attendance at religious services, or health behaviors, particularly cigarette and alcohol consumption. A baseline report of attendance at religious services is used to avoid confounding effects of deteriorating health. Socioeconomic status explains some but not all of the mortality difference. While Catholics, Evangelical Protestants, and Black Protestants benefit from favorable attendance patterns, attendance (or lack of) at services explains much of the higher mortality of those with no religious preference. Health behaviors do not mediate the relationship between mortality and religion, except among Evangelical Protestants. Not only does religion matter, but studies examining the effect of "religiosity" need to consider differences by religious affiliation.