Abstract
On average, married people are healthier than unmarried people. With the rapid growth of unmarried cohabitation, scholars have wondered whether health differences between married individuals and unmarried cohabitants diminished. Using pooled data from the Canadian Community Health Survey (2000–2001, 2005, 2010, and 2017–2018), I investigated associations between marital status and self-perceived health in the understudied Canadian context, which is marked by regional differences in the histories and meanings of unmarried cohabitation. Cohabitation has a longer history in Québec, where it is considered as an alternative to marriage, whereas in the rest of Canada it is typically seen as a childless prelude that could lead to marriage. Findings show that, in Québec, individuals living common-law (a particular type of unmarried cohabitation) were just as likely as married individuals to report very good or excellent health. In the rest of Canada, the probability of reporting very good or excellent health was consistently lower for individuals living common-law compared to married individuals. Future research should investigate why health differences between married individuals and those living common-law continue to be observed outside of Québec, despite the increasing practice and cultural acceptance of this type of union across the country.
Résumé
En moyenne, les personnes mariées sont en meilleure santé que les personnes non mariées. Avec le développement croissant de la cohabitation extramatrimoniale, les universitaires ont cherché à savoir si les écarts en matière de santé tendaient à diminuer entre les personnes mariées et les cohabitants non mariés. À l’aide des données totalisées des Enquêtes sur la santé dans les collectivités canadiennes (2000 à 2001, 2005, 2010, 2017 à 2018), nous avons étudié le rapport entre la situation de famille et l’autoperception de la santé dans un contexte canadien peu étudié et marqué par des différences régionales liées à l’histoire et à la signification de la cohabitation hors-mariage. La cohabitation extramatrimoniale est plus ancienne au Québec où cette union est considérée comme une alternative au mariage; néanmoins, dans le reste du Canada, elle est habituellement perçue comme un prélude pouvant mener au mariage. Les résultats montrent qu’au Québec, les personnes en unión libre (qui est un type d'union extramatrimoniale particulier) sont tout aussi susceptibles de se déclarer en très bonne ou en excellente santé que les personnes mariées. Dans le reste du Canada, la probabilité de se déclarer en très bonne ou en excellente santé s’est révélée invariablement inférieure pour les personnes vivant en union libre que pour les personnes mariées. Les recherches à venir devraient chercher à comprendre pourquoi les différences en matière de santé entre les personnes mariées et celles vivant en union libre continuent d’être observées à l’extérieur du Québec, malgré la pratique croissante et l’acceptation culturelle de ce type d’union dans l'ensemble du pays.
Data Availability
The data used in this study are publicly available. Datasets were procured from the Abacus Data Network (https://abacus.library.ubc.ca/).
Notes
The definition of common-law depends on the legal context (e.g., tax law vs. family law). Since family law falls under provincial jurisdiction, the definition of common-law and the rights associated with this type of union vary by province. The Canadian Community Health Survey did not provide a definition of the term for respondents, and it is unclear whether/how people in practice distinguish between common-law unions and cohabitation.
See also Laplante & Fostik (2016) for a discussion of the different legal contexts of marriage and cohabitation across Canada.
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Acknowledgements
The author thanks Cary Wu and Gerry Veenstra for feedback on an earlier version of this research note. The author also thanks the editor and two anonymous reviewers for their highly constructive feedback.
Funding
The author is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship #756–2022-0048).
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Vanzella-Yang, A. Cohabitation, Marriage, and Self-Perceived Health in Canada. Can. Stud. Popul. 50, 3 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42650-023-00074-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42650-023-00074-w