Mapping bereavement effect among pensioners in Italy

A rich literature documents that spousal bereavement, having lost a spouse or partner through death, is associated with decrements in health and excess mortality risk which peaks immediately after the loss but often persist over time. Yet, the reach of the consequences of the so-called widowhood or bereavement effect tends to differ between social groups (i.e. by age, gender, socioeconomic status) and across different contexts. Despite their relevance, the role of these factors as moderators of the association between spousal death and own mortality risk remains under-researched. Moreover, the intersection of those factors is rarely assessed in the literature on the widowhood effect. Knowledge is particularly scarce for Italy, despite it being a rapidly ageing society where the phenomenon of widowhood affects a substantial portion of the population. Using very recent Italian register social security data 2014-2022 from the National Institute of Social Security (INPS) and logistic regression, the study is the first to map the heterogeneity of the bereavement effect on mortality in the population of Italian old-age pensioners.