Lindmarker Jesper, Kolk Martin, Drefahl Sven
Institute of Analytical Sociology, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden.
Stockholm University Demography Unit, Department of Sociology, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden.
Eur J Popul. 2025 Jan 14;41(1):2. doi: 10.1007/s10680-024-09722-6.
Research has shown that married individuals live longer lives than unmarried women and men. A smaller number of studies have included non-marital cohabitation and have found that their mortality falls between the married and other unmarried groups. There are indications that the cohabiting population is diverse in terms of mortality risk, yet very little is known about how the association is related to age and stages of the life course. Sweden is a forerunner in family trends, and this is the first study that examines cohabitation and mortality in a Swedish context. Using Swedish register data for the years 2012-2017, we investigated how different partnership statuses are related to mortality for men and women at different ages (N = 5,572,011). We also examine whether the association between cohabitation and mortality is similar after accounting for family-of-origin effects through the use of a sibling comparison design. Our findings confirmed the notion of cohabiters as a diverse group whose relative mortality risk differs depending on the timing of cohabitation. Never-married cohabiters had a mortality risk similar to married couples at younger ages and a gradually increased risk with age. Divorced and widowed cohabiters exhibited an age gradient in the opposite direction. Future research should consider how the context of cohabitation changes across the life course.
研究表明，已婚人士比未婚男女寿命更长。较少的研究纳入了非婚同居情况，并发现他们的死亡率介于已婚群体和其他未婚群体之间。有迹象表明，同居人群在死亡风险方面存在差异，但对于这种关联如何与年龄及生命历程阶段相关却知之甚少。瑞典在家庭趋势方面处于领先地位，这是第一项在瑞典背景下研究同居与死亡率的研究。利用2012年至2017年的瑞典登记数据，我们调查了不同伴侣状态如何与不同年龄的男性和女性的死亡率相关（N = 5,572,011）。我们还通过使用兄弟姐妹比较设计，在考虑出身家庭影响后，研究同居与死亡率之间的关联是否相似。我们的研究结果证实了同居者是一个多样化群体的观点，其相对死亡风险因同居时间而异。未婚同居者在年轻时的死亡风险与已婚夫妇相似，且随着年龄增长风险逐渐增加。离婚和丧偶的同居者则呈现相反方向的年龄梯度。未来的研究应考虑同居背景在生命历程中是如何变化的。
