Functional Independence, Widowhood, and Cardio-metabolic Health: Evidence from India's Longitudinal Ageing Study

India's population of female older women is growing rapidly and out of this number, more than 50 per cent are likely to spend the final years of their life as widows. This study explores whether the ability to perform basic daily activities without assistance, known as functional status, protects widowed women from hypertension and sleep problems in the same way as it protects their married peers. Using nationally representative data on 16,512 women aged 60 and above from Wave 1 (2017-18) of the Longitudinal Ageing Study of India (LASI), I estimate logistic regression models of hypertension and regular trouble sleeping as functions of functional status, marital status, and their interaction. Results show that better functional status is associated with remarkably lower odds of both hypertension (adjusted OR = 0.88, 95% CI 0.79–0.98) and sleep trouble (OR = 0.73, 95% CI 0.66–0.81). Widowed and separated women have 16% higher chances of having hypertension than married women (OR = 1.16, 95% CI 0.99–1.35, significant only at the 10% level) and the protective association between functional status and hypertension is significantly weaker among widows (interaction OR = 1.15, 95% CI 1.02–1.31, p = .026). Inverse-probability-weighted estimates suggest that widowhood is associated with roughly two percentage points higher probabilities of hypertension and of sleep trouble. An instrumental-variables check, using regional variation in widowhood prevalence, corroborates the sleep-trouble estimates but not the hypertension estimates. Together, the results suggest that physical independence is a less reliable health buffer once the spousal relationship is gone, that widowhood’s harm operates mostly through channels other than functional decline, and that health policy for older adults should treat widowhood itself, not just functional status, as a target for intervention.