Estimating healthcare expenditures after becoming divorced or widowed using propensity score matching

Becoming divorced or widowed are stressful life events experienced by a substantial part of the population. While marital status is a significant predictor in many studies on healthcare expenditures, effects of a change in marital status, specifically becoming divorced or widowed, are less investigated. This study combines individual health claims data and registered sociodemographic characteristics from all Dutch inhabitants (about 17 million) to estimate the differences in healthcare expenditure for individuals whose marital status changed (n = 469,901) compared to individuals who remained married, using propensity score matching and generalized linear models. We found that individuals who were (long-term) divorced or widowed had 12–27% higher healthcare expenditures (RR = 1.12, 95% CI 1.11–1.14; RR = 1.27, 95% CI 1.26–1.29) than individuals who remained married. Foremost, this could be attributed to higher spending on mental healthcare and home care. Higher healthcare expenditures are observed for both divorced and widowed individuals, both recently and long-term divorced/widowed individuals, and across all age groups, income levels and educational levels. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10198-022-01532-z.