CAN MARRIAGE BE BAD FOR HEALTH? EVIDENCE FROM TURKEY

Literature on marital status and health generally finds that being married has a positive effect on health, however, this conclusion comes mostly from the studies of Western societies. In order to investigate whether this belief is generalizable to the entire world, we use the data on Turkey where family relations are mainly dominated by Oriental values and population is predominantly Muslim. We use the cross-sectional data from the 2010 Turkish Health Survey, which was carried out in 7,886 households (20,200 individuals) to employ an ordered probit model using self-rated health as a measure for health status. The results suggest that, contrary to the conclusions drawn from the previous studies, marriage has a negative effect on health status. We also show that this relationship is even stronger when we consider only women.