Valentine’s Day is perhaps the closest we come to the day of twoness in the Swedish calendar. Since pensions and insurance as a profession tend to provide one with a crass and partly materialistic view of the world, the natural reaction to the phenomenon of Valentine’s Day is “but is bisexuality so good?”
A measure of quality of life that we crass pension experts feel comfortable with is remaining average life expectancy at age 65. There, Statistics Sweden provides us with a basis in a few years old statistical news: Married people live longer. The group with the longest remaining life expectancy at age 65 is married, followed in descending order by the widows/widowers, divorced and never married groups.
Yes, we think. Then the duality seems to be something to celebrate, anyway. We who are married live longer. But then the sick pallor of reflection strikes, just as we, in rapture over our, statistically speaking, long remaining lives, are about to rush out and buy overpriced roses for the day for our spouse. Could it be that we are confusing correlation with causation? Or to put it differently: Could it be that married people’s longevity is due to something other than the very fact that they are married?
Fortunately, Statistics Sweden has also thought about this, and delved into the issue i one of its demographic reports. There it is stated in crisp investigative prose that the group of unmarried men, for example, “is probably the most selected for various characteristics that increase the risk of early death” (p. 77). That is to say, the married group consists to a greater extent of people with background factors that, according to fairly reliable evidence, increase life expectancy, such as income and level of education. So it seems that it is not so much the duality in itself as other factors that give a long life.
Statistics Sweden also reasons that married people have greater access to social support and social networks than others. At the same time you see in the statistics that perhaps this is mostly a beautifying paraphrase so that the men can appropriate their wives’ relational capital. Namely, the difference in life expectancy between married and divorced women is only 2.6 years to the latter’s disadvantage, while divorced men live a full five years shorter than married ones. A corresponding difference exists between widows and widowers. Women are thus less affected than men in terms of longevity by becoming single for one reason or another.
So, is the duality something to celebrate then? If you are to believe Statistics Norway, it is probably better to invest in high income and education if you want to be happy measured according to the measure remaining average life expectancy at age 65. But as a married man, I should probably go out and buy a cut flower for my wife because she is sharing her relational capital and thereby increasing my life expectancy. On average.