doiSerbia

Happy marriages are all alike: Marriage and self-rated health among Serbian Roma

Čvorović Jelena (Institute of Ethnography, Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Belgrade)
Coe Kathryn (IU Richard M. Fairbanks, School of Public Health, Indiana University Purdue University, Indianapolis, USA)

We describe how self-rated health varies with gender, type of marriage (marriage of choice vs arranged marriage), and cultural traits among Serbian Roma. Data on 91 men and 113 women (self-reported health, demographics and family dynamics) were collected in 2016 in Roma communities in Belgrade, Serbia. Roma in arranged marriage differ on a number of variables in regard to Roma in marriage of choice but not in regard to self-rated health. Gender specific analyses revealed that arranged marriages appear adaptive for both males and females, but they seem to benefit the males and not females in terms of health. For Roma women, a non-subordinate status was the strongest predictor of relatively “good” subjective health. All healthy (happily married) Roma men are alike in that they think they have subordinate wives and all healthy (happily married) Roma women are alike in that they think they are non-subordinate to their husbands.

Keywords: Roma, self-rated health, marriage, gender