Commitment and Relationship Maintenance Behaviors as Marital Protective Factors during Economic Pressure

Using a contemporary national sample of married couples (N?=?1368 couples) and a dyadic path analysis, the authors examined whether commitment and relationship maintenance behaviors facilitate marital quality resilience for wives and husbands reporting recession-related financial stressors and economic pressure. Relationship maintenance behaviors moderated the association between economic pressure and marital quality for wives. Wives reported higher levels of marital satisfaction and lower levels of divorce proneness during economic pressure when husbands reported higher levels of relationship maintenance behaviors. Unexpectedly, wives reported higher levels of divorce proneness during economic pressure when husbands reported higher levels of marital commitment.     

Socioeconomic,sociodemographic and attitudinal correlates of the tempo of divorce

The association between sociodemographic, demographic, and attitudinal measures and the timing or tempo of marital dissolution over a 14-year time span is examined. Separation is considered equivalent to divorce. Early and late divorce are differentiated by whether the event occurred before or after the average number of years married prior to divorce. Data were obtained on husbands and wives within childbearing years (up to 39 years) in the 1st years of the 1st marriage. A random stratified sample of 610 couples was drawn from records of marriages in a midwestern county between 1972-77. Reinterviews were conducted on 544 couples in April 1985. socioeconomic variables included educational attainment, occupational prestige, wife's employment status, wife's future work plans, husband's attitude to wife's future work plans, total family income, and level of satisfaction with current financial status. Demographic variables are age at marriage, number of children in 1985, marital duration, and desired family size. Attitudinal items were religiosity and gender role orientations (traditionalism, modernism, egalitarianism). Exposure to divorce was not equitably distributed for the 108 who divorced, but this was not statistically significant. The results indicate that those divorced earlier were wives who worked outside the home, worked at more prestigious jobs, planned to be employed throughout married life, and whose father had a higher level of educational attainment. This finding is not consistent with prior research which has shown that favorable socioeconomic conditions lower the probability of divorce. The timing of divorce was affected by the presence of children. Those married at younger ages divorced earlier and couples with children delayed divorcing longer than couples without children. These findings were consistent with earlier research. Catholic wives delayed divorce longer than non-Catholic wives. Males lower in sexual satisfaction divorced earlier. Divorce was postponed longer for husbands with traditional values and wives who had higher scores on egalitarianism. Wives with scores on modernism had earlier divorces than wives scoring lower on modernism. The tempo of divorce was in multiple classification analysis predicted best by wife's employment status and number of children. Cross-classification was not possible.     

Does similarity breed marital and sexual satisfaction?

This study examined the effect of socioeconomic-cultural homogamy on the marital and sexual satisfaction of Hong Kong Chinese couples. Using a representative, territory-wide sample of 1,083 first-time married heterosexual couples, this study found that wives were generally less satisfied than their husbands with their marital and sexual relationships. Husbands were more likely to be satisfied with their marriages when they were two to four years older than their wives than when they were of similar age to their wives (i.e., within one year of each other), but they were less likely to be satisfied with their marriages when only their wives were employed than when both partners were employed. In addition, they were less likely to be satisfied with both their marital and sexual relationships when their wives were five or more years older. Wives with an older husband were more likely to be sexually satisfied than wives of the same age as their husband, but they were less likely to be satisfied with their marriages when they were better educated than their husbands. The implications of the findings are discussed.     

Does Similarity Breed Marital and Sexual Satisfaction?

This study examined the effect of socioeconomic–cultural homogamy on the marital and sexual satisfaction of Hong Kong Chinese couples. Using a representative, territory-wide sample of 1,083 first-time married heterosexual couples, this study found that wives were generally less satisfied than their husbands with their marital and sexual relationships. Husbands were more likely to be satisfied with their marriages when they were two to four years older than their wives than when they were of similar age to their wives (i.e., within one year of each other), but they were less likely to be satisfied with their marriages when only their wives were employed than when both partners were employed. In addition, they were less likely to be satisfied with both their marital and sexual relationships when their wives were five or more years older. Wives with an older husband were more likely to be sexually satisfied than wives of the same age as their husband, but they were less likely to be satisfied with their marriages when they were better educated than their husbands. The implications of the findings are discussed.     

Women's Education,Marital Violence,and Divorce: A Social Exchange Perspective

Drawing on social exchange theories, the authors hypothesized that educated women are more likely than uneducated women to leave violent marriages and suggested that this pattern offsets the negative education–divorce association commonly found in the United States. They tested these hypotheses using 2 waves of young adult data on 914 married women from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. The evidence suggests that the negative relationship between women's education and divorce is weaker when marriages involve abuse than when they do not. The authors observed a similar pattern when they examined the association of women's proportional earnings and divorce, controlling for education. Supplementary analyses suggested that marital satisfaction explains some of the association among women's resources, victimization, and divorce but that marital violence continues to be a significant moderator of the education–divorce association. In sum, education appears to benefit women by both maintaining stable marriages and dissolving violent ones.     

Is Your Spouse More Likely to Divorce You if You Are the Older Partner?

The authors assessed how the relative age of spouses affects whether men or women initiate a divorce, using data from the National Survey of Families and Households. Ex‐spouses' reports of who left generally agreed, but not always, so the analysis used a latent class model embedded in an event‐history model with competing risks that the woman leaves the man or the man leaves the woman. Support was not found for the hypothesis that age heterogamy itself increases the odds of divorce: Even large age differences did not make men more likely to leave younger wives, and women's exits were as likely when the marriage is homogamous as when she was older. The main conclusion is that both men and women are more likely to leave if their spouse is older than they are. The effects were stronger for men, but the gender difference in effect size was not statistically significant.     

The Association Between Consumer Debt and the Likelihood of Divorce

As part of the Center for Financial Security’s 2010 symposium, this study examined the association between consumer debt and divorce. Longitudinal data from the National Survey of Families and Households (N = 4,574 couples) indicated that consumer debt was positively associated with divorce. Financial conflict completely mediated this association for both husbands and wives and marital satisfaction also completely mediated the association for wives. These findings suggest that when families take financial steps to secure their financial stability they may also be taking steps to secure their relationship stability.     

Socioeconomic,Sociodemographic and Attitudinal Correlates of the Tempo of Divorce

This study assesses the impact of socioeconomic, sociodemographic, and attitudinal characteristics of husbands and wives on the timing of marital dissolution. The primary concerns were with divorce and the intervals of marital duration before divorce occured. The analysis was based on data collected from an initial sample of 610 couples in the early years of marriage, all of whom resided within a large North Central Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area in 1978. The couples were reinterviewed seven years later in 1985 (N = 544). The data collected from the first wave of subjects were used to identify antecedent characteristics of husbands and wives, whereas, data from the second wave were used to measure the timing (tempo) of marital dissolution among the 105 couples who subsequently divorced. Partial correlation coefficients indicated that the tempo of divorce significantly varied according to the wife's employment status, occupational status, future work plans, father's education, age at marriage, gender role orientation and number of children. Moreover, a multiple classification analysis of these variables showed that under controlled conditions wives' employment status and number of children were more powerful predictors of the tempo of divorce.     

Religious Influences on the Risk of Marital Dissolution

This study examined multiple dimensions of religious involvement and the risk of divorce among a nationwide sample of 2,979 first‐time married couples. Multivariate proportional hazards modeling was used to analyze two waves of the National Survey of Families and Households. Results indicated that although each partner's religious attendance bore a modest relationship to marital dissolution, the risk of divorce was lower if husbands had conservative theological beliefs and when both partners belonged to mainline Protestant denominations. Conversely, the risk of divorce was elevated if husbands attended services more frequently than their wives and if wives were more theologically conservative than their husbands. These patterns withstood controls for sociodemographic covariates, marital duration, and marital quality. Directions for future research are discussed.     

Changing Partners: Toward a Macrostructural‐Opportunity Theory of Marital Dissolution

We merge marital history data for respondents in the National Survey of Families and Households with census data describing the sex composition of their local marriage markets and occupations to examine the impact of the availability of spousal alternatives on marital dissolution. Proportional hazards regression models that adjust for left truncation reveal that the risk of divorce is highest in geographically defined marriage markets where either husbands or wives encounter numerous alternatives to their current partner. Couples are also more likely to divorce when the wife works in an occupation having relatively many men and few women, but husbands' occupational sex ratio has no effect on the risk of marital dissolution. The destabilizing effects of the availability of spousal alternatives in the local marriage market and in wives' occupations are equally strong among couples with many and few other risk factors for divorce. Our findings suggest that spouses' structural opportunities to form alternative opposite‐sex relationships are an important factor in explaining why some couples divorce.     

Gender Differences in Marital Satisfaction: A Meta‐analysis

The purpose of the present meta‐analysis was to empirically test the widely held assumption that women experience lower marital satisfaction than men. A total of 226 independent samples with a combined sum of 101,110 participants were included in the meta‐analysis. Overall results indicated statistically significant yet very small gender differences in marital satisfaction between wives and husbands, with wives slightly less satisfied than husbands; moderator analyses, however, indicated that this difference was due to the inclusion of clinical samples, with wives in marital therapy 51% less likely to be satisfied with their marital relationship than their husbands. The effect size for nonclinical community‐based samples indicated no significant gender differences among couples in the general population. Additional moderator analyses indicated that there were also no gender differences when the levels of marital satisfaction of husbands and wives in the same relationship (i.e., dyadic data) were compared.     

Intergenerational Support and Marital Satisfaction: Implications of Beliefs About Helping Aging Parents

Everyday support given to aging parents is a salient aspect of married life that may have implications for marital quality. Among 132 middle‐aged couples drawn from Wave 1 of the Family Exchanges Study, the authors examined the moderating effects of each spouse's normative and motivational beliefs about helping parents on associations between the frequency of everyday support that wives and husbands gave to their own parents and marital satisfaction. Husbands' more frequent provision of support was linked to wives' greater marital satisfaction when reports of personal rewards linked to helping parents were high for wives or low for husbands. Conversely, wives' more frequent provision of support was linked to husbands' lower marital satisfaction when reports of filial obligation were low for husbands or high for wives. Findings highlight the interdependence within couples and indicate that both spouses' perceptions are important in understanding linkages between intergenerational support and marital satisfaction.     

The Impact of Wives' Employment on Attitude Toward Divorce

Previous studies indicated a relationship between wives' employment and marital instability. Although there are several notable exceptions, the theoretically predicted positive link between wives' employment and marital instability/divorce remains popular. This paper explores the extent to which wives' employment affects their attitudes toward divorce, once religious and other sociodemographic variables are statistically controlled. The data are taken from the 1983-1984 Canadian Fertility Survey of 5,315 women aged 18 to 49. The overall effect of wives' employment on divorce attitude is substantial, indicating that employed women are more likely to favour marriage as a permanent union. Many popular notions about the influence of demographic and socioeconomic factors such as age, age at marriage, children and occupational prestige on divorce attitude, are not supported by this research. At the same time, religious factors significantly predict divorce attitudes. The results suggest that the less educated, employed, highly religious and heterogeneous are more likely to agree that marriage is a permanent union which should only be broken for very serious reasons.     

Dollars,Dependency, and Divorce: Four Perspectives on the Role of Wives’ Income

This article delineates and assesses the evidence for four perspectives that have guided previous research on the relationship between wives’ economic resources and marital stability. Hypotheses from these perspectives were tested using event history methods and 1980–1997 panel data for 1,704 individuals from the Marital Instability Over the Life Course study. Both wives’ dollar income and wives’ percentage of total family income served as measures of wives’ economic resources. The association between wives’ percentage of income and divorce formed an inverted U‐shaped curve, with the odds of divorce being highest when wives contributed between approximately 40% and 50% of the total family income. When wives’ resources were measured in dollars, wives’ income showed a positive, linear association with the odds of divorce. These findings provide the strongest support for an equal dependence perspective, which argues that economic dependence and obligation influence marital stability.     

Correlates of Marital Duration and Black-White Intermarriage in California

A 10% random sample of all divorce cases in California in 1977 provides the data base for this study of black-white intermarriage. We find that although there are many similarities between same-race and black-white intermarriages, marriages which involve black husbands and white wives differ in several respects from other types. Not only are they shorter in duration of marriage; they have fewer children or none at all; spouses rank relatively higher in education, the black husband higher in education than the black husband of the black wife; they involve relatively few teenage marriages partly because a relatively high percentage of the black husbands have been married previously. In addition, when black husbands are married to white wives, they are less likely than husbands in other marriages to file for divorce, leaving that initiative, wives who tend to have slightly higher education levels than their black husbands. Though there are relatively few marriages of white husbands and black wives, they tend to be very similar to same-race marriages and thus tend toward greater marital stability in terms of the above characteristics.     

Splitting the Marital Home: Gendered Property Division and Postdivorce Foreclosure

Divorce proceedings often involve splitting the marital home and contested claims over property and other assets. This case study examines the divorce–foreclosure nexus through key informant interviews, analysis of divorce files and foreclosure notices, and a review of court records on debt, remarriage, and criminal offending. We found that property disposition is a gendered process, with men receiving the marital home 1.7 times more often than women, even though they had more court debt, job instability, and criminal offending than their wives. Male defendants who hired an attorney received the house 85% of the time (52% for women defendants with an attorney). In postdivorce, men were more likely than women to remarry, have second mortgages, and to reoffend. We conclude that “equal” rather than “equitable” property division would reduce women’s structural disadvantage in divorce settlements and postdivorce home ownership.     

An Evaluation of the "Recovery of Hope" Program

The Recovery of Hope program was initiated in 1981 to address the problem of couples entering marriage enrichment events whose distress levels indicated a need for therapy rather than enrichment. An ex post facto evaluation was conducted for this divorce prevention program, surveying 190 spouses who had been involved in the program prior to October 1984. Returns were obtained from 34 wives and 27 husbands on post-test and retrospective pre-test marital satisfaction measures, along with a variety of other items and demographic data. Program completion appeared to assist couples in either improving their rclationship or in deciding to divorce, as opposed to continuing with an unsatisfactory marital relationship.     

Concepts of Fairness in Marriage and Divorce

Discourses of fairness are bound up with Western ideals of companionate marriage. They are also central to the ways people talk about their approaches to divorce, especially in relation to the division of property and finances. How fairness is understood within marriage, however, is gendered, with husbands more likely to take equity-based approaches and wives equality-based approaches. In this article I discuss previous research on how fairness is understood within marriage, and compare this with data from a study of people going through divorce proceedings in England and Wales. I suggest that some, but not all, understandings about fairness are carried over from marriage into divorce, and note that in many ways English and Welsh divorce law supports a particular conception of fairness that redresses objectively unfair divisions of labor within the marital relationship.     

What Explains Divorced Women's Poorer Health? The Mediating Role of Health Insurance and Access to Health Care in a Rural Iowan Sample

Economic restructuring in rural areas in recent decades has been accompanied by rising marital instability. To examine the implications of the increase in divorce for the health of rural women, we examine how marital status predicts adequacy of health insurance coverage and health care access, and whether these factors help to account for the documented association between divorce and later illness. Analyzing longitudinal data from a cohort of over 400 married and recently divorced rural Iowan women, we decompose the total effect of divorce on physical illness a decade later using structural equation modeling. Divorced women are less likely to report adequate health insurance in the years following divorce, inhibiting their access to medical care and threatening their physical health. Full‐time employment acts as a buffer against insurance loss for divorced women. The growth of marital instability in rural areas has had significant ramifications for women's health; the decline of adequate health insurance coverage following divorce explains a component of the association between divorced status and poorer long‐term health outcomes.