School of Public Health

Detailed description

In this research strand, we examine the health of men, women, and other gender identities from sexual minority groups across their life course. We also aim to provide additional insights into the role of individuals’ and partners’ gender in shaping treatment-seeking and health reporting by comparing same-sex couples with mixed-sex couples. 

Research have consistently demonstrated that union status is one of the most powerful sociodemographic determinants of individuals’ health. Substantial benefits of being married—which is associated with healthy behaviors and provides individuals with economic, emotional, and social support—have been found for a host of mental and physical health indicators. There is also compelling evidence showing that union dissolution through separation and a spouse’s death negatively affects adults’ health and longevity. These impacts vary across social groups. For example, while health benefits of marriage are larger for men than for women, widowhood takes a greater toll on men’s than women’s health, partly because women have wider social networks and positively influence their spouses’ health behaviors through social control. 

Notably missing in research on health implications of the union dynamics to date are same-sex couples, although they represent one of the fastest growing household types in the U.S. and European countries. As for mixed-sex couples, a union trajectory of same-sex couples may encompass a sequence of transitions over their life course, including the transitions from single to married, the transition to parenthood, or the transition into divorce and widowhood.

Although quantitative analyses are limited, there are reasons to expect that individuals in same-sex unions may experience these transitions in a distinctive way that may have implications for their health different to the individuals in mixed-sex unions. First, same-sex unions are confronted with unique psychosocial stressors, such as minority stressors, which have been shown to be negatively related to multiple health outcomes. Second, the gender dynamics within same-sex couples may be substantially different from those within different-sex couples. Same-sex couples are less likely to adhere traditional gender roles with more equal distribution in provision of economic and emotional support, childcare, domestic work and other responsibilities. Thus, these fundamentally different gender dynamics among sexual minority couples may change the very fabric of what a union status, e.g., marriage, means for them and how it influences their health. Studying same-sex couples can advance our understanding how a different enactment through gender and gender roles shapes the relationship between union transition and health.