Family living arrangements and health

The family is one of the most important domains in people’s lives. This chapter considers the relationship between family living arrangements and health. Particular attention is given to the most widely examined aspect, that between marital status and health (both mortality and morbidity). The nature of the relationship between family living arrangements and health is reviewed, and it is shown that, in general, married people have the best health, followed by the single, with the formerlymarried having the worst. Analyses are presented on mortality by marital status, on variations in self-reported long-term illness from the 2001 Census, and across a number of different indicators of health status, self-reported and independentlymeasured, from the 2001 Health Survey for England.