International research has shown that single mothers have higher rates of physical and mental illness than mothers with partners. The proportion of single parent households headed by men is increasing in many developed countries. However, the vast majority of studies have investigated in single mothers and very few focus on single fathers. The purpose of the present study is to examine the hospitalization, general practitioner visits and mortality of single fathers in comparison with both partnered fathers and single mothers in Denmark.

The study is conducted linked high-quality Danish register data on the total Danish population. Survival analyses and several regression techniques are used to identify differences in mortality and health outcomes among the single parent and partnered households. We expect to detect worse mortality and health outcomes for both single fathers and single mothers in comparison to their partnered counterparts. This result will be mainly explained by the economic disadvantage many single parents are exposed to. Further, we assume to find similar gender differences in health and mortality among the single parent and partnered households.