Never married
Having never been legally married, most often by older age. Lifelong single is the usual phrase in studies.
Studies read it from a marital-status question: never married, as against married, divorced or widowed. A person who never married may have lived with a partner or had a long relationship. The measure is the legal status, not whether anyone lives alone. Living alone on this atlas is a household fact, loneliness is the feeling, and widowhood is the death of a spouse.
Also called lifelong single, never been married, single (never married).
Connected relationships
Meta-analysis · Moderate
Never married→Dementia
Higher never married increases dementia.
In a pooled analysis, lifelong single adults had a higher risk of dementia than married people, with a relative risk of 1.42.
Meta-analysis · Moderate
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.