Centenarians Marital History and Living Arrangements: Pathways to Extreme Longevity

Objectives:

Mortality risk for older persons is associated with marital status and living arrangements, for example, living alone, with a spouse, with others but without a spouse, or in a collective household. This study analyzed the marital history and living arrangements of centenarians with the aim of identifying which trajectories are associated with reaching an advanced age.

Method:

Original longitudinal register-based data for 3,000 Belgian centenarians born between the years 1893 and 1903 were used to reconstruct their marital history and living arrangements during their later life (from age 60 to 100).

Results:

The marital history and living arrangements for male and female centenarians were strikingly different after they reached the age of 60. From age 60 to 100, male centenarians lived twice as long with their wife as female centenarians did with their husband. Female centenarians lived alone for more than half of their lives. Male centenarians had younger wives and female centenarians had older husbands than non-centenarians. More than half of the widowers remarried and did so with a woman who was generally more than 10 years younger. Most centenarians ended their life in a nursing home but entered it very late in life.

Discussion:

In very old age, living with a spouse is beneficial for men but not for women, for whom living alone is more advantageous than living with a spouse. This study compares the marital history and living arrangement trajectory of centenarians with people who did not live as long to determine associated mortality risks confirming that men are often not able to live by themselves, whereas women seem to have few problems to manage on their own.

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