A partner’s death hits harder when finances are unstable

The sudden death of a partner often impacts the surviving partner’s mental health so severely that they start taking anxiety-reducing or antidepressant medication. 

When a woman dies suddenly, 8.6% of male partners begin using psychotropic drugs immediately after the death. Within the first year, that figure rises to 16% — and these are men who had no prior use of such medication in the years leading up to the loss.
The same pattern applies to 11.5% of women who suddenly lose their husband, with the number climbing to 18.5% within the first year. For some, the use continues for at least five years after the death.

If the surviving spouse also loses the household’s main breadwinner, even more turn to psychotropic medication:
Specifically, 10 percentage points more widows and 5 percentage points more widowers.

This is shown by new research from the Department of Economics, Center for Economic Behavior and Inequality at the University of Copenhagen. The study has been accepted and is forthcoming in the prestigious journal American Economic Review: Insights and is supported by the ROCKWOOL Foundation.

The loss of a spouse or cohabiting partner often also means a significant drop in income for the survivor.
The research team estimate that the additional use of psychotropic medication among economically stressed widows and widowers amounts to 54% for widows and 32% for widowers.

“Although the death of a partner can be traumatic in itself, our data on the use of medication for anxiety and depression clearly show that a major loss of income - and possibly uncertainty about future finances - worsens the psychological consequences. The increased use of medication indicates that the mental impact of bereavement is significantly greater for those who, on top of grief, also experience a substantial financial loss,” says Professor of Economics Torben Heien Nielsen from the University of Copenhagen.

12,000 Danish couples studied

In the study, economists examined the mental health of widows and widowers in 12,000 Danish couples aged 45–80, where one partner suffered a fatal heart attack or a stroke (blood clot or brain hemorrhage) between 1999 and 2013 and died within 12 months.
They did this by tracking how many began consuming psychotropic medication after the death - such as sedatives for anxiety and insomnia or antidepressants.
The researchers analyzed both the couple’s income and medication use four years before and four years after the critical illness occurred and compared these findings with a control group of about 15,000 men and women with identical characteristics, whose partner suffered a fatal cardiac arrest or stroke—just five years later.

In the four years leading up to the heart attack or stroke, 11–12% of all women and 7% of all men use psychotropic medication, with usage gradually increasing with age. Immediately after the partner’s death, the share rises sharply: 23% of women and nearly 16% of men now take such medication.
The brown graph shows women and men in married or cohabiting couples, where both were aged 45–80 when one partner suffered cardiac arrest or a stroke (blood clot or brain hemorrhage) and died as a result.
The orange graph shows the control group—couples exposed to the same illness and death, but five years later.
Source: Own calculations based on data from Danmarks Statistik and peer-reviewed by American Economic Review: Insights (The figure reproduces data from Figure 1 in the research article.)

Rich and poor suffer equally

Surprisingly, the researchers find that the couple’s income level does not affect the surviving partner’s mental well-being. What matters more is how much of the household income the widow or widower loses after the death.