Ethnic Composition of Couples and Mutual Health Benefit Receipt: Register-based Evidence from Finland

Abstract Background: The literature on health dependencies among partners typically ignores diversity when it comes to partnership characteristics, which have consequences on many facets of life and may be important for the health of both parties. One salient example is the ethnic or racial composition of the couple. We extend prior work on partnerships and health by investigating how married and cohabiting partners mutually influence each other’s receipt of health-related benefits, and focus on how any such correlations vary by the couple’s ethnic composition.Methods: We study partners’ mutual receipt of sickness allowance and disability pension in ethnically endogamous and exogamous couples in Finland. The population consists of native individuals in similar socioeconomic positions but belonging to two different ethnic groups, Finnish and Swedish speakers, which differ regarding health and cultural practices related to family life. Using data from population registers (36,034 couples in 1987-2011), we estimate discrete-time hazard models for first-time benefit receipt related to partner’s benefit receipt among midlife couples.Results: We find evidence of mutual receipt of health benefits in both endogamous and exogamous couples, the correlation being strongest for disability pension. Partner correlation in disability pension receipt is slightly stronger in endogamous Swedish than in endogamous Finnish couples, while women in exogamous couples are slightly less sensitive to men’s receipt than vice versa. These findings show that the ethnic composition of couples is important for mutual health benefit receipt.Conclusions: Our findings could be explained both by collateral health effects and by rational decisions concerning mutual leisure time, income loss, and informal health care needs. The results clearly cast light on the important issue of mutual health in couples, and that associations of this kind may be heterogeneous across couples that differ in ethnic composition.