The singles life can be a shorter one

Here’s some bad news for the confirmed bachelors and runaway brides of the world: They don’t live as long as married people, especially if they never get married, according to new research.

Many studies have found that unmarried adults tend to die earlier than those who are married, but most did not differentiate between those who were separated or divorced and those who never got hitched.

In the new study, Robert Kaplan of UCLA and Richard Kronick of U.C. San Diego studied census and death certificate data collected from almost 67,000 U.S. adults between 1989 and 1997.

After taking into account age, health and several other factors likely to influence longevity, the researchers found that between 1989 and 1997, those who had been widowed were almost 40% more likely to die than married people living with their spouses. Those who had been divorced or separated were 27% more likely to have shorter lives. Those who had never been married were 58% more likely to die during this period. The never-married “penalty” was greater for men than women.

The findings could not be explained by a greater tendency among single people to engage in risky behaviors, the researchers found. Instead, they speculated that the explanation might be related to unmarried people having fewer social connections. The study was published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.