Division of Labor,Gender Ideology,and Marital Satisfaction in East Asia

Using data from the 2006 Family Module of the East Asian Social Survey (N = 3,096), this article examines associations of marital satisfaction with divisions of housework and gender ideology in four East Asian societies: urban China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. Compared with Japanese and Korean married women and men, Chinese and Taiwanese spouses were more satisfied with their marriage and had more egalitarian divisions of housework, but simultaneously they held less egalitarian gender ideologies. Multivariate analyses showed that relative share of housework was negatively associated with marital satisfaction for Japanese and Korean men and for Korean and Taiwanese women. Egalitarian gender ideology was significantly associated with lower marital satisfaction only among Taiwanese women. In addition, the negative association between housework and marital satisfaction was more pronounced for Taiwanese women who espoused more egalitarian gender ideologies. The authors discuss how differences in macro‐level social contexts explain these cross‐society variations.     

Attitudes Toward Divorce,Commitment, and Divorce Proneness in First Marriages and Remarriages

A random multistate sample of married individuals (N = 1,931) was used to explore whether more positive attitudes toward divorce and weaker commitment to marriage may contribute to the greater instability of remarriages than first marriages. Remarried adults, whether or not they brought children from a previous union into the remarriage, reported marital quality (happiness and conflict) equal to those in first marriages. They also reported more positive attitudes toward divorce, which were associated with higher divorce proneness (i.e., thinking about and taking actions toward divorce). Marriage type interacted with marital quality to predict divorce proneness, such that the association between low marital quality and divorce proneness was stronger for remarried individuals than for those in first marriages. This suggests that remarried adults may be more likely than adults in first marriages to take steps toward divorce when experiencing marital distress, possibly reflecting a weaker commitment to marriage.     

Association of Egalitarian Attitudes with Income,Poverty, and Entitlement Program Utilization

This article examines the relationship between egalitarian gender attitudes and its effect on income, poverty, and social service utilization. In a sample of married fathers in the Fragile Families data (N = 717), we conducted regression analyses on these questions, five years after initial interviews. Our results indicate that egalitarian attitudes were positively associated with income and social service utilization and negatively associated with poverty. Implications of these findings are discussed, including possible explanations for these findings, their importance for social work practice, and recommendations for social policy.     

Continuity and Change in Marital Quality Between 1980 and 2000

We use data from two national surveys of married individuals—one from 1980 and the other from 2000—to understand how three dimensions of marital quality changed during this period. Marital happiness and divorce proneness changed little between 1980 and 2000, but marital interaction declined significantly. A decomposition analysis suggested that offsetting trends affected marital quality. Increases in marital heterogamy, premarital cohabitation, wives' extended hours of employment, and wives' job demands were associated with declines in multiple dimensions of marital quality. In contrast, increases in economic resources, decision‐making equality, nontraditional attitudes toward gender, and support for the norm of lifelong marriage were associated with improvements in multiple dimensions of marital quality. Increases in husbands' share of housework appeared to depress marital quality among husbands but to improve marital quality among wives.     

Marital Status,Marital History,Body Weight,and Obesity

Marital status and marital history are associated with health. Marital history can be represented by the marital trajectory components of timing, transitions, sequence, and duration. We examined whether marital trajectory components add insights beyond marital status in predicting body weight in a retrospective analysis of 3,011 adults. Marital status findings revealed that married men were heavier than separated/divorced men, and never married women were heavier and more often obese than married women. Marital history findings showed that after adjusting for marital status, trajectory measures of age at first marriage, second marriage or second divorce, experiencing widowhood, and duration of separation/divorce were not clearly associated with body weight or obesity. Body weight and obesity appear to be associated with current marital status but not marital history.     

Spillover Between Marital Quality and Job Satisfaction: Long‐Term Patterns and Gender Differences

We used data from a 12‐year panel survey of a nationally representative sample of married individuals (not couples) and structural equation modeling to investigate the process of spillover between marital quality (satisfaction and discord) and job satisfaction among married individuals. We considered three questions: whether job satisfaction and marital quality are related over the long term, whether influence flows primarily from work to family or if there is a pattern of mutual effects between job satisfaction and marital quality, and whether job satisfaction and marital quality are related in similar ways for married women and married men over the long term. We found that marital quality and job satisfaction are related over the long term and that marital quality is the more influential of these domains. We found evidence of both positive and negative spillover from marital quality to job satisfaction over the long term. Specifically, increases in marital satisfaction were significantly related to increases in job satisfaction, and increases in marital discord were significantly related to declines in job satisfaction. Finally, our results indicated that these processes operate similarly for married women and married men.     

Gender Dynamics Predict Changes in Marital Love Among African American Couples

This study examined the implications of gender attitudes and spouses' divisions of household labor, time with children, and parental knowledge for their trajectories of love in a sample of 146 African American couples. Multilevel modeling in the context of an accelerated longitudinal design accommodated 3 annual waves of data. The results revealed that traditionality in husbands' gender attitudes was linked to lower levels of love. Furthermore, divisions of household labor and parental knowledge moderated changes in love such that couples with more egalitarian divisions exhibited higher and more stable patterns of love, whereas more traditional couples exhibited significant declines in love over time. Finally, greater similarity between spouses' time with their children was linked to higher levels of marital love. The authors highlight the implications of gender dynamics for marital harmony among African American couples and discuss ways that this work may be applied and extended in practice and future research.     

Attitude and Propensity to Divorce in Iran: Structural and Ideational Determinants

Divorce has been increasing worldwide, even in societies where religious impediments to it are strongest. In the Islamic Republic of Iran, divorce rates have risen rapidly since the mid-1990s. In this article, we investigate the attitude and propensity of young Iranians toward divorce and relate these attitudes and propensities to structural and ideational factors. The data are drawn from a survey of 720 married people ages 15 to 29 conducted in the city of Tehran in 2014. The results show that almost half of respondents approved of divorce as a solution for marital problems and one fifth of them have high propensity to divorce. Multivariate analyses indicate that approval of and high propensity toward divorce are significantly associated with ideational factors—namely individualism, secularism, and gender egalitarian views—and structural factors—including education, wife’s employment, and household economic insecurity—even after controlling for demographic variables. We discuss the implications of these findings for the understanding of marital stability in this rapidly changing context.     

Disentangling the Relationship Between Age and Marital History in Age-Assortative Mating

Many scholars have noted that divorcees have age-assortative mating patterns distinct from the never-married. Similarly, comparisons between older and younger individuals indicate that hypergamy becomes increasingly likely with age. Unfortunately, prior research has not been able to disentangle the effects of age from the effect of divorce. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 cohort (n = 12,231 for first marriage and 4,298 for remarriage) and heterogeneous choice models, this research predicted the likelihood of age homogamy and hypergamy as a function of age, marital history, and other factors. The results indicate that homogamy is largely an age-driven phenomena, where the never-married and previously married have similar patterns. However, the likelihood of hypergamy is higher for the previously married, even after accounting for the influence of age in the models.     

Changes in Wives' Income: Effects on Marital Happiness,Psychological Well‐Being,and the Risk of Divorce

We investigate the effects of increases in married women's actual income and in their proportion of total family income on marital happiness, psychological well‐being, and the likelihood of divorce. We use data from a sample of 1,047 married individuals (not couples) in medium‐duration marriages, drawn from a five‐wave panel survey begun in 1980 and continuing to 1997. Structural equation modeling is used to assess the impact of increases in married women's absolute and relative income from 1980 to 1988 on the marital happiness and well‐being of married men and women in 1988. Event history analysis is used to determine how these changes affect the risk of divorce between 1988 and 1997. We find that increases in married women's absolute and relative income significantly increase their marital happiness and well‐being. Increases in married women's absolute income generally have nonsignificant effects for married men. However, married men's well‐being is significantly lower when married women's proportional contributions to the total family income are increased. The likelihood of divorce is not significantly affected by increases in married women's income. Nevertheless, increases in married women's income may indirectly lower the risk of divorce by increasing women's marital happiness.     

The transition to marriage

Cohabitation has often been viewed as easing the transition to marriage. The question is therefore asked, what characterizes relationships in which couples live together for an extended period of time prior to marriage, then decide to marry, and within two to three years are divorced? Four groups were interviewed (cohabitated/married; cohabitated/married/divorced; dated/married; dated/married/divorced) with the hope of analyzing the differences or similarities in the marital transitions made by individuals within these groups. The total sample consisted of 40 respondents who were given an in-depth, face-to-face interview. It was found that the degree of congruence between dyad members regarding perceptions and expectations surrounding marriage and marital life was an important factor in the success with which couples were able to make the marital transition.     

Socio-economic factors and family size as determinants of marital dissolution in Italy

This is an analysis of marital dissolution in Italy, with a focus on the life events and socioeconomic factors that put individuals at high risk of a marital breakup. The author notes that Italian society still largely conforms to traditional conjugal models and attitudes toward cohabitation and divorce. "Women most exposed to the risk of marital disruption seem to be those who married very young, who have had no more than one child, who are better educated, who have full-time jobs and who reside in large towns in the north-west of Italy. In addition, a woman who cohabits with her partner before marrying him is more likely to separate than a woman entering marriage directly."     

Sex,marital status,and suicide in Canada: 1951-1981

Data from Canada for the period 1951-1981 are used to analyze the influence of marital status on suicide. "Using a standardization procedure, it was discovered that a transition from single or widowed to married would entail a greater reduction in suicide risk for men than for women. In the case of a transition from divorced to married status, both sexes would benefit equally in reducing suicide potential. The analysis further demonstrates only weak support for the thesis that over time there would be a convergence in sex differences in the potential protective significance of marriage in reducing suicide risk."     

Marital violence: comparing women in violent and nonviolent unions.

This study examined marital violence among Israeli Jews. Data were obtained from a sample of 161 women who gave birth at Soroka Medical Center in the Negev region of Israel in 1992. The literature reveals that Jewish families tolerate domestic violence if an "evil" woman refuses housework or shows no respect for her husband. It is believed that Jews do not beat their wives. This study explored the degree to which women accept as legitimate the gender division of authority and use of power. It is posited that women in violent marriages (VMs) tend to accept the traditional division of labor and authority and hold more tolerant attitudes toward VMs. It is posited that VMs may be less egalitarian and democratic. VMs may be maintained if women are emotionally dependent on husbands, have a lower self-image, and perceive their husbands more positively. The questionnaire asked about social background and resources, attitudes toward marital power and violence, power relations, self-image, conflict solving, and women's emotional dependency. 18% had 1 domestic violent episode. 8 factors explained 56% of the difference between VMs and non-VMs and 90% of the cases. Husbands tried to avoid conflict. Wives fought for their interests and used external resources when conflict occurred. Husbands were reluctant to share power. There were 2 distinct patterns: the battered women syndrome and the struggle for power. Marital conflict was associated, as in the American literature, with economic hardship, lack of collectiveness in the dyad, and the form of conflict solving tactics used by both spouses. Women in VMs had different attitudes toward husband control and were emotionally dependent on their husbands.     

Association between Depressive Symptoms,Perceived Partner Emotional Expression,and Marital Quality

Previous studies have explored the direct association between mental health and marital quality; however, the processes moderating that association are not yet well understood. The present study examined associations between depressive symptoms, perceived partner emotional expression, and marital quality among 462 married individuals. Findings suggest that (a) low commitment, low satisfaction, and marital instability may be symptomatic of mental well-being; (b) individuals experiencing depressive symptoms are more inclined to have negative views of their relationships; and (c) perceptions of their partners’ expressions of gratitude and understanding serve as a buffer against the negative association between depressive symptoms and marital quality. Thus, perceptions of positive emotional expressiveness may serve as a resource facilitating marital quality when individuals are experiencing depressive symptoms.     

The Marital Scales: Measurement of Intent,Attitudes, and Aspects Regarding Marital Relationships

Studies on marital relationships focus on intent to marry, global positive or negative attitudes toward marriage, and expectations for what married life will be like. There are currently no instruments capable of assessing all three of these areas. This study outlines the development and validation of the Marital Scales. One is designed to measure intent to marry (Intent to Marry Scale), another is for general attitudes toward marriage (General Attitudes Toward Marriage Scale), and the last scale measures expectations for marital relationships (Aspects of Marriage Scale). They are also designed to be applicable for any individual, regardless of marital status or sexual orientation. Results demonstrated excellent factor structure, and good internal reliability and construct validity for the instrument.     

The Impact of Gender and Marital Status on Attitudes and Responses to Unemployment

The study examined differences in job search intensity, attitudes toward unemployment, and related responses among a sample of Israelis, based on gender and marital status (single vs. married). The findings indicate that gender-based differences were greater than those based on marital status. Regarding the impact of gender, women were more likely than men to reject jobs because of conflict with family responsibilities or unsuitable working conditions. Both men and women mentioned gender atypical characteristics of occupations as a reason for rejecting employement, although this tendency was especially prevalent among married women. Women also reported more stress reactions and decline in health as an outcome of unemployment. Regarding the impact of marital status, married men tended to seek jobs more intensively than respondents in the other research groups. Single respondents of both sexes were more likely than their married counterparts to view unemployment as a personal advantage because it gives them more time to themselves. Moreover, married respondents of both sexes were more likely to reject job offers because of conflict with family responsibilities or unsuitable working conditions. In light of the findings, practical recommendations for counselors are provided.     

Gender,work and childbearing: couple analysis of work adjustments after the transition to parenthood

This study focuses on Swedish couples' work adjustments following the transition to parenthood. Specifically, we ask whether couples' gender role attitudes influence whether they make adjustments to their work situations after the end of the parental leave. Using couple data from the Young Adult Panel Study, we find that both partners are more likely to make work adjustments when both partners hold egalitarian attitudes. It is also more likely that only the male partner will make work changes when both partners are egalitarian. When one partner holds more egalitarian attitudes than the other partner, it tends to have a stronger impact on the work adjustments of the more egalitarian partner. For example, couples with egalitarian male partners are more than three times as likely to have the male partner change his work situation as couples in which neither partner holds egalitarian attitudes. While less consistent, there is some evidence that female egalitarian attitudes increase the likelihood of female work changes.     

Occupational Self‐Direction,Values, and Egalitarian Relationships: A Study of Dual‐Earner Couples

This study examines the associations between husbands' and wives' experiences at work and their attitudes about and behaviors in marriage, using a framework informed by the ideas of Kohn (1969, 1977) . Specifically, it was hypothesized that experiences of self‐direction at work would be associated with greater endorsement of values associated with self‐direction. Further, it was predicted that those who value self‐direction more would both prefer and adopt more egalitarian arrangements in their marriages. These hypotheses were tested with a sample of 167 dual‐earner couples. Results supported the hypotheses and suggested that values mediate the relationships between occupational self‐direction and both attitudes about marital roles and the division of household labor. The pattern of results suggests that this framework is a useful perspective for examining the construct of marital equality.     

Gender,the Marital Life Course,and Cardiovascular Disease in Late Midlife

Drawing on 5 waves of the Health and Retirement Study, we examine the influence of the marital life course on the prevalence and incidence of cardiovascular disease among 9,434 middle‐aged individuals. Results show that compared to continuously married persons, both men and women with a marital loss have significantly higher prevalence of cardiovascular disease at baseline. Men and women, however, differ in the effects of marital loss on the incidence of cardiovascular disease over the course of the study. Women with a marital loss have a higher risk of cardiovascular disease in late midlife compared to continuously married women, whereas marital loss is not associated with men’s risk of cardiovascular disease. Emotional distress and socioeconomic status account for the higher risk of cardiovascular disease among divorced women.