Relationship between marital status and body mass index in Japan
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Relationship between marital status and body mass index in Japan Kazuma Sato
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Received: 1 July 2019 / Accepted: 27 August 2020 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract This study examined the relationship between marital status and body mass index (BMI) using data collected from the Japan Household Panel Survey from the period 2009–2018. The varying effects of marital status and changes in such status across the BMI distribution were explored using fixed effects ordinary least square and unconditional quantile regression with fixed effects. Based on the analysis, three key points were identified. First, although marital status does not significantly affect BMI for men, BMI tends to be higher among married women than unmarried women. Second, a positive and significant relationship between marriage and BMI was observed among women under the age of 40, and the effect was largest at the 90% percentile of the BMI distribution. Third, the transition from single to married status has positive yet short-lived effects on BMI for men. Contrastingly, the effects are persistent for women, and the effect is largest at the top of the BMI distribution. The results confirm previous findings that marriage confers weight gain even in Japan, where rates of obesity are significantly lower than in other developed countries. Keywords Body mass index Obesity Unconditional quantile regression with fixed effects Marital status ●
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JEL classification I12
1 Introduction The question of how marriage affects health has been widely examined. Several studies have shown that married individuals have better mental health and subjective rated health (Horwitz et al. 1996; Simon and Marcussen 1999; Barrett 2000;
* Kazuma Sato [email protected] 1
Faculty of Political Science, Takusyoku University, Kohinata 3-4-14, Bunkyou-ku, Tokyo 112-8585, Japan
K. Sato
Simon 2002; Guner et al. 2014), lower mortality (Gove et al. 1983; Rahman 1993; Hu and Goldman 1995; Johnson et al. 2000; Manor et al. 2000; Gardner and Oswald 2004; Mete 2005), and greater happiness (Blanchflower and Oswald 2004; Clark et al. 2008). Additionally, some research has found that marriage is likely to result in positive changes not only in life style behaviors such as drinking, smoking, and diet (Ben-Shlomo et al. 1993; Wickrama et al. 1995; Horwitz et al. 1996; Power et al. 1999; Burke et al. 2004), but also in expenditure for maintaining health over the lifespan (Guner et al. 2014). In contrast to the above health indicators, body mass index (BMI) has been demonstrated to be adversely impacted by marriage. Marriage is associated with higher BMI (Sobal 1991; Sobal et al. 1992, 2003; Shafer 2010; Averett et al. 2008, 2013; Teachman 2016), as well as a greater incidence of overweight or obesity (Averett et al. 2008, 2013). Some studies have indicated gender differences in the impact of marriage on BMI, such as that women experience greater increases than men (Averett et al. 2008, 2013; Shafer 2010). However, most of the research y
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