Childhood IQ and marriage by mid-life: the Scottish Mental Survey 1932 and the Midspan studies

Abstract

The study examined the influence of IQ at age 11 years on marital status by mid-adulthood. The combined databases of the Scottish Mental Survey 1932 and the Midspan studies provided data from 883 subjects. With regard to IQ at age 11, there was an interaction between sex and marital status by mid-adulthood ( p = 0.0001). Women who had ever-married achieved mean lower childhood IQ scores than women who had never-married ( p < 0.001). Conversely, there was a trend for men who had ever-married to achieve higher childhood IQ scores than men who had never-married ( p = 0.07). In men, the odds ratio of ever marrying was 1.35 (95% CI 0.98–1.86; p = 0.07) for each standard deviation increase in childhood IQ. Among women, the odds ratio of ever marrying by mid-life was 0.42 (95% CI 0.27–0.64; p = 0.0001) for each standard deviation increase in childhood IQ. Mid-life social class had a similar association with marriage, with women in more professional jobs and men in more manual jobs being less likely to have ever-married by mid-life. Adjustment for the effects of mid-life social class and height on the association between childhood IQ and later marriage, and vice versa, attenuated the effects somewhat, but suggested that IQ, height and social class acted partly independently.