Never married → All-cause mortality
Higher never married increases all-cause mortality.
In a pooled review of older people, those who never married had a relative risk of death of 1.11 compared with married people.
Meta-analysis · Moderate · N=53
The two move together in observational data. Nobody has yet tested whether one causes the other.
Mechanism
The authors do not name a pathway for this link, so how it might work is not settled.
Caveats
The review studied elderly people and compared them with married individuals. The excess is modest. It shows that never-married status tracks with higher death rates, not that staying single shortens life. Health, income, education and social ties could all shape who marries. Widowed and divorced or separated people were also compared in the same review.
Effect
Risk ratio 1.11 (95% CI 1.07 to 1.15). Never-married elderly people had a relative risk of death of 1.11 (1.07 to 1.15) compared with married people.
Nodes
Named confounders
Cite this page
What Causes What. “Never married → All-cause mortality.” https://whatcauseswhat.org/edges/e-never-married-mortality (atlas updated 2026-10-18).
Papers
- Marital status and mortality in the elderly: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
L Manzoli, P Villari, G M Pirone, A Boccia · 2007 · Social science & medicine (1982)
elderly individuals · Risk ratio 1.11 (95% CI 1.07 to 1.15)