Women's Education Affects Both Her Partner's And Her Own Personal Longevity

Main Category: Women's Health / Gynecology
Article Date: 08 Oct 2009 - 0:00 PDT

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How well educated a woman is influences both her own and her partner's chances of a long life, suggests research published ahead of print in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

The findings are based on 1.5 million Swedes aged between 30 and 59 all of whom were in work.

Information on their educational attainment, social class, status, and earnings, including wages and related state benefits, was collected from 1990 Census for married and cohabiting couples and matched against entries in the national Cause of Death Register up to 2003.

The results showed that there was a gender divide in the risk of death from any cause, and that this was linked to education and social class.

Women's educational attainment and social status affected their male partner's longevity. In fact, a female partner's education was more important for a man's chances of a long life than his own educational attainment.

The male partner's social class and income, seemed to have the most impact on a woman's risk of death. How much a woman earned had little influence on her own, or her partner's, risk of death.

But a woman's educational achievements and her male partner's social class and income had a strong influence on her own risk of death from circulatory disease.

The authors suggest that education predicts occupation, which predicts class and social status as well as income. It may also influence selection of partner and, importantly, lifestyle.

"Women traditionally take more responsibility for the home than men do, and, as a consequence, women's education might be more important for the family lifestyle - for example, in terms of food habits - than men's education," say the authors.

Source
The Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health

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