Background info:

I am doing a correlational study design and my hypothesis is that there is a correlational relationship between marital status and health, with people who are married scoring substantially healthier than those never married, divorced, separated, or widowed.

My independent variable is marital status.

My dependent variable is health.

I gathered data from GSS. I coded data as follows: marital status 5=married, 4=widowed, 3=divorced, 2= separated, 1= never married. Health is coded as 4=excellent, 3= good, 2= fair, 1= poor.

My Question:

Since I am examining the relationship between variables, I am not sure what statistical measure to use to analyze the data. Given the data which statistical test would be most appropriate to use?

My assignment states that I need to describe statistical findings, include statistical significance and influence of effect size.

Sample size is 18,142 participants

I have SPSS.