1. No category

OMEGA, Vol. 59(4) 325-337, 2009
THE WIDOWHOOD EFFECT: A COMPARISON
OF JEWS AND CATHOLICS
ERNEST L. ABEL, PH.D.
MICHAEL L. KRUGER, MS
Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan
ABSTRACT
Using mortality data derived from tombstones in two Midwestern cemeteries,
we compared the “widowhood effect” (decreased survival following the death
of a spouse) among Jews and Catholics. Jewish men and women were both
more likely to die sooner after the death of their spouses compared to Catholic
men and women. Life table survival analysis indicated that the median number of years of survival following widowhood for Catholic and Jewish men
were 7.7 years and 5.0 years, respectively (p < .01). For Catholic and Jewish
women, it was 11.0 and 9.5 years, respectively (p < .01) Interpretations were
offered in terms of Bowlby’s attachment theory.
INTRODUCTION
Married people are more physically active, more psychologically stable, and live
longer than their unmarried counterparts, and this advantage is more pronounced
for men than for women (Gove, 1973; Hu & Goldman, 1990; Nock, 1995; Waite,
1995; Yanrreng & Goldman, 1990). In contrast to the beneficial effects of marriage on longevity, the bereavement associated with widowhood adversely affects
physical health (Stroebe & Stroebe, 1993), and in so doing, decreases longevity
for the surviving spouse, a phenomenon known as the “widowhood effect,” or
325
Ó 2009, Baywood Publishing Co., Inc.
doi: 10.2190/OM.59.4.c
http://baywood.com
326 / ABEL AND KRUGER
“broken hearted effect” (Elwert & Christakis, 2006; Umberson, Wortman &
Kessler, 1992).
Mortality differences among groups within the same country can be clues
to the role of different lifestyles and health-related behaviors (Rosenwaike, 1990).
Examinations of mortality patterns for all causes among religious groups have
a long history (Rosenwaike, 1990), but the role of religious affiliation on the
“widowhood effects” has not been hitherto explored. This is the first study to
show that survival of one spouse after the death of the other is related to religious affiliation.
The theoretical framework in which we examined this hypothesis was Bowlby’s
attachment theory (Bowlby, 1980) and the “continuing bonds” model (Waskowic
& Chartier, 2003). According to attachment theory, when individuals encounter
actual or potential threats to their security they automatically turn for protection
and comfort to attachment figures or to internalized representations of them. When
attachment figures are no longer readily available, their absence triggers memories
of these attachment figures and unconscious “wishes” for reunion with them or
their surrogates (Shaver & Mukulincer, 2005). Since this is not possible in the case
of the death of an attachment figure, the emphasis is shifted from actual reunion to
developing new and different type of “continuing bond” (Waskowic & Chartier,
2003) with the departed (Silverman & Nickman, 1996). These “continuing bonds”
often take the form of visiting the grave and dreaming about and speaking to the
deceased (Waskowic & Chartier, 2003). In this context, one of the ways religions
may influence the reaction to the death of a spouse is by providing hope that the
surviving spouse will be reunited with the departed spouse (the former attachment
provider) after death.
Since resurrection and reunion with a departed spouse is more integral to
Christianity than Judaism (Abel, 2009; Harley & Firebaugh, 1993; Hood, Spilka,
Hunsberger, & Gorsuch, 1996), the decreased belief in reunion with a spouse after
death on the part of Jews may have resulted in a greater “widowhood” effect than
for Christians (i.e., Jews died sooner after the death of a spouse than Christians).
The data base we used to test this hypothesis was tombstones. Tombstones are
death notices written in stone. These death notices contain information relating to
gender, day, month, and year of death and often birth as well. If birth information
is omitted, the age of death is usually included so that year of birth can be
determined. Marital status and other familial relationships are often included on
tombstones or can be inferred from inclusion of statements on them such as
“husband of” or “wife of,” “mother,” and “father” or occurrence of male and
female names incised on the same stone, or on adjacent gravestones containing the
same surname and similar birth years. From such data, the date of death for each
individual can be readily obtained, as well as information as to which one of a
married couple died first, and the period of widowhood after the death of the other
spouse (Foster & Hummel, 1995; Foster, Hummel & Adamchak, 1998; Haveman,
1999; Kephart, 1950; Young, 1960). Although some of these same data are
THE WIDOWHOOD EFFECT /
327
available from vital (natality and mortality) registries, such registries were not
implemented in parts of the United States before 1919 (Petersen, 1975) and were
not uniformly implemented until 1933 (Petersen, 1975). Most importantly for the
present purposes, religious affiliation has not been included in these data sources.
For this study we operationally defined religious affiliation as burial in a Jewish
or Catholic cemetery. Cemeteries for Jews and Catholics are each affiliated with
and managed by related religious organizations, and restrict those who are allowed
to be buried on those premises, so that only Jews are permitted to be buried in
Jewish cemeteries and only Catholics are permitted to be buried in Catholic
cemeteries (Abel, Kruger, & Abel, 2008). We did not include Protestants in this
comparison because there are many more doctrinal distinctions within Protestantism than within Judaism or Catholicism (Xu, Hudspeth, & Bartowski, 2005).
We did not attempt to compare Jews and Catholics buried in other cemeteries
because most tombstones in nondenominational cemeteries do not identify Christians as Catholics or Protestants.
An obvious shortcoming associated with relying on cemetery data for religious
identity is that burial in a cemetery associated with a particular religion does not
indicate the extent of religiosity of those interred in that cemetery. While religious
belief per se is positively correlated with increased health and longevity (Goldbourt, Yaari, & Medalie, 1993; Hummer, Rogers, Nam & Ellison, 1999; Idler &
Kasl, 1997; Oxman, Freeman & Manheimer, 1995), the beliefs associated with a
particular religion, rather than their intensity as reflected in frequency of prayer or
church attendance, are more strongly associated with health and longevity—that
is, differences between religions are more important than differences within religions (Brown, Nesse, House, & Utz, 2004; Idler & Kasl, 1997).
METHODS
Information regarding birth and death were based on tombstones from two large
cemeteries, Holy Sepulchre Catholic Cemetery and Adat Shalom Cemetery, in the
Detroit, Michigan metropolitan area. These cemeteries were chosen because they
are relatively large and for the pragmatic reason of proximity. According to Jewish
custom, only people of Jewish faith can be buried in a Jewish cemetery and only
those professing Catholicism are buried in Holy Sepulchre. Adat Shalom Cemetery is owned and operated by Adat Shalom Synagogue. Holy Sepulchre is owned
and operated by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Detroit. Thus, all burials in
each cemetery represent two distinct religious populations for comparison.
Variables
Digital photographs of all grave markers were obtained from Adat Shalom and
from lots 15 to 20 in Holy Sepulchre Catholic Cemetery in 2007. These photographs were then transcribed into an Excel file and analyzed. For inclusion, the
328 / ABEL AND KRUGER
month, day, and year of death and of birth had to be present for both husband and
wife on the grave marker. To avoid selection bias arising from one of the spouses
not being included because death had not occurred, we restricted our analysis to
couples in which both the husband and wife were born during or before 1920.
Categorial data were analyzed using the Binomial, Fisher’s Exact Test, and
Wilcoxin-Mann-Whitney U-tests. Analysis of Variance and the Student’s Independent Samples “t”-test (two-sided) were used to determine differences between
the two cemeteries in terms of the average year of birth for interments, age at death,
age differences between spouses based on year of birth (a proxy for age differences at time of marriage), age at widowhood, and determination of the “widowhood” effect—that is, the time between death of a spouse and the death of the
surviving spouse. Analysis of covariance was used to determine differences relating to religion, after controlling for the previously mentioned factors. Hierarchial
multiple regression was used to examine the effects of religious affiliation by first
controlling for the effects of age, gender, age difference between spouses, and
birth year as the first block, followed by religion and then by the religion by age
interaction. Life table survival analysis (Matthews & Farewell, 2007) was conducted to compare the year-to-year survival rates for the Catholics and conservative Jews. All statistical analyses were conducted using SPSS 15.0 for windows
(SPSS, 2008).
RESULTS
There were 284 Jewish couples and 276 Catholic couples in our final sample.
The average birth years for husbands interred in the Jewish and Catholic cemeteries were 1907 and 1904 respectively; average birth years for their wives
were 1910 and 1908 respectively. The differences between Jews and Catholics
were statistically significant for both males and females (t = 2.7, 2.8; df = 558,
p < 0.01, respectively).
As anticipated, husbands were born before their wives. The average year of
birth for all women was 1909 vs. 1906 for men (F = 303.6, 0, df = 1, 559;
p < .001). Overall, 76% of the women married older men (Binomial test, p < .001).
On average (± S.D.), women married men who were 3.2 ± 4.3 years older. Of
the 23.9% of the women who married younger men, husbands were 1.8 ± 3.0
years younger.
Jewish women were much more likely to marry older men compared to Catholic
women (81.8% vs. 71% respectively; Fishers exact = p < .01). However, the mean
age difference between Jewish and Catholic couples was not statistically significant. For Jewish couples, the difference in age was 3.1 (± 3.6 years) compared to
3.2 (± 4.9) years for Catholic couples.
Since husbands were older than their wives when they married, and men traditionally have shorter life spans than women, it was not surprising that most
THE WIDOWHOOD EFFECT /
329
husbands died before their wives. Seventy percent (68.9%) of the husbands died
first (p < .001, binomial test). The average age at death for men was 77.9 ± 11.4
years compared to 81.3 ± 10.2 for women. This difference was not statistically
significant when corrected for birth year.
The average age at death for Jews was 80.9 ± 11.1 compared to 78.3 ± 11.3 for
Catholics (F = 14.4, df = 1, 556; p < .001, corrected for birth year). The interaction
between gender and religion was statistically significant (F = 5.1, df = 1, 556;
p < .03). The average age at death for Jewish women was 81.8 ± 9.4 compared to
80.8 ± 10.9 for Catholic women. The average age at death for Jewish men was
79.7 ± 10.4 compared to > 76.3 ± 12.1 for Catholic men indicating that the interaction occurred because Jewish men lived longer than Catholic men (p < .001),
whereas Jewish and Catholic women did not differ significantly in age at death.
Women who survived their husbands lived several years longer compared to
husbands who survived their wives (13.4 ± 9.8 vs. 8.6 ± 8.3 years respectively;
F = 6.0, df = 1, 553; p < .02; corrected for birth years of husbands and wives and
age of widowhood).
The main effect of religion on survival after widowhood was statistically significant (F = 5.9, df = 1, 553, p < .02, controlling for gender, age at widowhood, birth
year). Both Catholic men and women lived longer than Jewish men and women
after the death of a spouse. Life Table survival analysis for Jews and Catholics is
shown in Figure 1. For each year after the death of a spouse, a lower percentage of
Jewish widows and widowers survived the death of their spouse compared to
Catholic widows and widowers. The median number of years of survival following widowhood for Jewish and Catholic men was 5.0 and 7.7 years, respectively.
For Jewish and Catholic women, it was 9.5 and 11.0 years, respectively (Wilcoxin
statistic = 9.3; 14.2; df = 1, p < .01 for men and women, respectively). For the first
five years of widowhood, a higher percentage of Catholic men (69.7%) survived
widowhood compared to Jewish men (50.0%; Fisher’s exact, p < .02, two-sided).
For those men who survived the first 5 years of widowhood, 62.3% of Catholic
men survived an additional 5 years compared to 59.2% for Jewish men. This
difference was not statistically significant. For women, 83.0 % of Catholic women
survived the first five years of widowhood compared to 71.0% for Jewish women
(Fisher’s exact, p < . 01, two-sided). For those women who survived the first
5 years of widowhood, 76.5% of Catholic women survived an additional 5
years compared to 66.2% of the Jewish women. This difference was also not statistically significant.
To examine the effects of religious affiliation independent of the effects of other
variables associated with mortality, we also performed a hierarchical multiple
regression analysis. In this analysis, we determined if survival time after the death
of a spouse would still be significantly related to religious affiliation after initially
controlling for the block variables of gender, birth years, age differences between
husbands and wives, and age at widowhood; religion was then entered as the
second step, followed by the interaction between religion × age as the third step.
330 / ABEL AND KRUGER
Figure 1. Cumulative percent survival during the first ten years following
widowhood for Catholic and Jewish husbands and wives.
THE WIDOWHOOD EFFECT /
331
The initial block variables accounted for 49% of the variability in survival after the
death of a spouse (F = 135.0, df = 4, 555, p < .001, R2 = 0.49) with age at spouse’s
death, gender, and age difference between spouses all significant (p < .03).
Religion was also a significant predictor of spousal survival, but accounted
for only 0.5% of the variance after controlling for the variables entered at step 1
(F = 5.1, df = 1, 554, p < .03, R2 = .005). The interaction between religion and age
at widowhood was not a significant predictor of spousal survival. Table 1 presents
the details of the regression model.
DISCUSSION
In agreement with previous studies of widowhood (e.g., Elwert & Christakis,
2006; Kraus & Lilienfield, 1959; Martikainen Martelin, Nihtila, Majamaa, &
Koskinen, 2005; Parkes Benjamin & Fitzgerald, 1969; Schaefer, Quesenberry, &
Wi, 1995; Van-Grootheest, Beekman, Van-Groenov, & Deeg, 1999) we found
that women generally survived their husbands and lived more years after the death
of their spouses than vice versa.
Based on Bowlby’s (1980) attachment theory, one reason for the greater impact
of widowhood on men is that men derive much more of their social support from
their wives than vice versa. This theory was originally developed to explain the
evolutionary advantages infants derive from developing an affectionate bond for
caregivers. This includes not only protection from predators, but also a sense of
security. This feeling of attachment security becomes the basis for future intimate
relationships with others, especially spouses. When the attachment is sundered by the death of a spouse, it can be devastating because of the loss of
Table 1. Hierarchical Regression Model: Variables Predicting
Survival Following Death of a Spouse
STEP
1
Variable
Unstand b
Std. Err.
Stand b
t
Sig.
R2
0.493
Age
–.596
.033
–.665
–18.2
.000
Gender
1.644
.648
.079
2.54
.012
Age difference
Birth year
.147
.069
.065
2.13
.034
–.021
.035
–.019
–0.60
.551
.667
–.067
–1.95
.050
.005
–.007
–.19
.850
.000
1.39
.164
2
Religion
–1.297
3
Religion by age
–2.38
1.25
(Constant)
94.61
67.90
332 / ABEL AND KRUGER
emotional support derived from that attachment (Berado, 1970; Gove, 1973;
Pihlblad, Adams & Rosencranz, 1972). This emotional loss can weaken immune
function and resistance to diseases, precipitating death (Martikainen et al., 2005;
Wortman and Silver, 1989). The loss of a spouse has a greater impact on men
(Van-Grootheest et al., 1999) because the restraints on unhealthy behaviors—e.g.,
poor nutrition, alcohol consumption—provided by marriage, are greater for men
than women (Umberson et al., 1992).
In the present study we evaluated the role of religious affiliation, operationally
defined as burial in a specific cemetery, in the context of the widowhood effect.
Applications of attachment theory to religiosity (Granquist & Hagekull, 2001)
propose that one of the main reasons individuals turn to religion in times of difficulty is that religions hold out the promise of being reunited (i.e., reattachment)
with a loved one after death, thereby providing a source of comfort when a spouse
dies. Another reason the widowhood effect has a greater impact on men may be
because religion is less salient in their lives compared to women (Koenig, Hays,
Larson, George, Cohen, McCullough et al., 1999), thereby diminishing the psychological comfort of a “continuing bond” that survives death (Waskowic &
Chartier, 2003). Similarly, the decreased belief in reunion with a spouse after
death on the part of Jews compared to Catholics (Abel, 2009; Harley & Firebaugh,
1993; Hood et al., 1996) may result in a greater negative impact on the general
emotional well being of Jews. This in turn may reduce restraints on unhealthy
behaviors, resulting in a significantly greater “widowhood” effect, especially in
the first few years after a spouse’s death.
In the present study, a higher percentage of Catholic men and women, compared
to Jewish men and women survived the first 5 years of widowhood, whereas differences between Catholics and Jews were not statistically significant during the
second 5 years. This is similar to other studies noting a higher incidence of stroke,
heart attack, and cancer among the recently widowed (Chen, Bierhals, Prigerson,
Kasl, Mazure & Jacobs, 1999; Engstrom, Gunnar, Khan, Ziab, Ijerntorpa, PessahRamussen, et al., 2004; Parkes et al., 1969), and a decreased death rate the longer
the survival after the death of a spouse.
Whereas interment in a cemetery managed by a religious organization does not
indicate sincerity of belief in a particular religion, a study of widowed individuals
found that the frequency of church/synagogue attendance was less important than
an individual’s religious self-identity in coping with the loss of a spouse
(Brown et al., 2004). In other words, it is not the degree of religiosity (e.g., church/synagogue attendance, frequency of prayer, or intensity of prayer) but the basic
belief structure itself that influences the extent to which one relies on religion as a
coping mechanism.
The possible involvement of artifacts influencing gender and religious differences warrants some additional discussion. The fact that the widowhood effect is
THE WIDOWHOOD EFFECT /
333
greater for men than women could simply have been the result of husbands being
older than their wives, so their dying before their wives and their shorter mortalities after the death of their wives would be expected. However, even after
controlling for the age factor, husbands were still more likely to have a stronger
widowhood effect (i.e., they died sooner after their wives rather than vice versa),
implying that other factors mediate this difference.
Alternatively, gender differences may have resulted from the greater tendency
of men to remarry after widowhood (Lillard & Pannis, 1996). If remarriage
removes men with the highest levels of well being, those who remain unmarried
would be those who experience the greatest trauma. The higher incidence of the
widowhood effect among men in our study might therefore be a result of our
including only couples who were buried next to one another. However, Lee, De
Maris, Bavin, and Sullivan (2001) note that while more common among men than
women, remarriage is still relatively uncommon among widowers, particularly
those who were older when their wives died.
Reports dating back to the 18th century have noted that adult mortality rates
among Jews is lower than for other religious groups (Derosas, 2003; Van Straten
& Snel, 2006), a finding that has continued to the present (Rosenwaike, 1990; Van
Straten & Snel, 2006). We likewise found that Jews on average tended to live
longer than Catholics. One reason for the aggregate lower mortality of Jews is that
Jews may be more health-conscious and therefore more likely to seek medical help
at an early stage of illness (Derosas, 2003). Because Jews live longer than
Catholics, Jewish men may have been more likely to die sooner than Catholic men
after the death of their respective spouses, simply because they were older. We
eliminated this possibility by controlling for age at widowhood in our covariance
and regression analyses. Even after controlling for the age difference at death,
Jewish men were still more likely to die following the death of a spouse than were
Catholic men.
Another artifact is assortative mating (Johnson, 1980). Assortative mating
means that individuals with poor health, smokers, those with behavioral
disturbances, etc. will be less likely to marry but if they do, their spouses are
also more likely to marry those with similar characteristics and therefore die
within a short period of one another thereby increasing the impact of the
“widowhood effect.” The higher mortality of unmarried individuals and the
higher mortality associated with widowhood could thus be due to their
inherent similarities among couples (Kiernan, 1988; Martikainen et al., 2005;
Mastekaasa 1992). While the associative mating artifact may account for some
widowhood effects, an assortative mating artifact cannot account for the stronger
widowhood effect among Jews because their healthier lifestyles and greater
longevities overall should have an opposite effect on widowhood (i.e., they should
live longer).
334 / ABEL AND KRUGER
A major advantage of our data base was that deaths could be compared over a
broad age range, which is sometimes not possible using other data bases such as
Medicare records which only include individuals 65 years of age and older (e.g.,
Elwert & Christakis, 2006; Schaefer et al., 1995). There are, however, several
major shortcomings related to our data base such as the absence of personal
information about health, cause of death, weight, etc. that are possible using
Medicare and similar data bases (e.g., Elwert & Christakis, 2006). We also do not
know if there are socioeconomic status differences between these two groups,
whether these were first or higher order marriages, or whether those buried in
these cemeteries were born in the United States or were recent immigrants. We
also were unable to compare Jews and Catholics buried in other types of cemeteries for the practical reason that religious affiliation is not part of tombstone
inscriptions in these cemeteries. While religious symbols for Jews (e.g., a star)
indicate religious identity, no such marking symbol denotes Catholicism. Also
problematic is the inability to take into account individuals who were cremated.
While some individuals may still have markers erected in their memory, we are
unable to determine anything about such individuals. Despite these shortcomings,
the present data indicate that religious identity affects survival of widowers after
the death of their spouses.
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