Effects of Religiosity,Forgiveness, and Spousal Empathy on Marital Adjustment

This study focused on married couples in a region of the United States that previous research has identified as having high rates of both religiosity and divorce. As a result, this study was designed to examine the effects of religiosity, forgiveness, and spousal empathy on marital adjustment. To investigate these constructs, married couples in this region were recruited (n?=?829) to participate in a cross-sectional, self-report telephone survey. Results indicate that religious service attendance and spousal empathy have direct positive effects on marital adjustment in European American married men; while religious service attendance, forgiveness, and spousal empathy have direct positive effects on marital adjustment in European American married women. Among African-American participants, only spousal empathy had a direct effect on marital adjustment for both men and women. Finally, spousal empathy moderated the association between previous marriage and current marital adjustment among European American married women.     

I've Got You Under My Skin: Marital Biography and Biological Risk

Social relationships shape adult health in profound ways. This study informs our understanding of this association by investigating how the transitions, timing, and exposures to marriage are associated with types of biological risk presumed to serve as pathways to disease and disability. Drawing on the 2005–2006 National Social Health and Aging Project (N = 1,062), the authors evaluated how marital biography was associated with cardiovascular, metabolic, and chronic inflammation risk. The results showed that the effects of marital biography were highly sensitive to gender, the dimension of marital biography, and type of biological risk. For example, marital exposure was protective of cardiovascular risk for women, but not men, whereas an earlier age at first marriage had a pernicious effect on chronic inflammation among men, but not women. Health behaviors did not explain these associations. The implications of these findings are discussed as they pertain to under‐the‐skin risk processes and chronic morbidity.     

Does Marital History Matter? Marital Status and Wealth Outcomes Among Preretirement Adults

Data from the 1992 Health and Retirement Survey are used to specify ordinary least squares (OLS) regression models predicting wealth. Separate models are estimated for men and women. The results indicate that individuals who are not continuously married have significantly lower wealth than those who remain married throughout the life course. Remarriage offsets the negative effect of a marital dissolution. There are significant gender differences in these effects. The results demonstrate that accounting for the sequence of marital events provides a detailed picture of the life paths that lead to wealth heterogeneity among the older population.     

Does Marriage Increase the Odds of Affluence? Exploring the Life Course Probabilities

This study estimates the life course incidence and age pattern of affluence among American couples in comparison to nonmarried, never married, and formerly married men and women. Life course probabilities are computed from a series of life tables built upon 25 years of data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (N= 8,510 25‐year‐olds; N= 3,481 45‐year‐olds). Results confirm the notion that marriage enhances the lifetime probability of affluence, and that this advantage varies sharply by gender and by race. The study suggests that the marital advantage for gaining affluence is textured by a financial landscape of gender and race inequality.     

Marital status and psychiatric disorders among blacks and whites.

This paper examines the association between marital status and psychiatric disorder for Blacks and explores the extent to which these patterns differ from those for Whites. Widowed and separated/divorced Black males and females have higher rates of disorder than the married; never-married Blacks do not have an elevated risk of psychiatric illness. The association between marital status and disorder for White males is similar and stronger than that observed for Blacks. For White women, the separated/divorced have a higher risk of disorder than the married, and unmarried White females have higher rates of the substance abuse disorders, but lower rates of the anxiety disorder than the married. Across all marital status groups, Black males and White males have higher rates of disorder (except for depression), than females. A complex pattern emerges when gender differences in the relative rates of disorder for unmarried Blacks compared to married Blacks are considered. Separated/divorced Black men, widowed Black women, and never-married Black men are worse off than their respective peers. Except for the separated/divorced, opposite patterns are evident for Whites. Directions for further research are outlined.     

Premarital Cohabitation and Marital Dissolution: An Examination of Recent Marriages

An ongoing question remains for family researchers: Why does a positive association between cohabitation and marital dissolution exist when one of the primary reasons to cohabit is to test relationship compatibility? Drawing on recently collected data from the 2006–2008 National Survey of Family Growth, the authors examined whether premarital cohabitation experiences were associated with marital instability among a recent contemporary (married since 1996) marriage cohort of men (N = 1,483) and women (N = 2,003). They found that a dichotomous indicator of premarital cohabitation was in fact not associated with marital instability among women and men. Furthermore, among cohabitors, marital commitment prior to cohabitation (engagement or definite plans for marriage) was tied to lower hazards of marital instability among women, but not men. This research contributes to our understanding of cohabitation, marital instability, and broader family change.     

Marital Quality,Gender, and Markers of Inflammation in the MIDUS Cohort

Marital quality is an important factor for understanding the relationship between marriage and health. Low‐quality relationships may not have the same health benefits as high‐quality relationships. To understand the association between marital quality and health, we examined associations between two indicators of marital quality (marital support and marital strain) and two biomarkers of inflammation (interleukin‐6 and C‐reactive protein) among men and women in long‐term marriages using data from the Survey of Midlife in the United States (N = 542). Lower levels of spousal support were associated with higher levels of inflammation among women but not men. Higher levels of spousal strain were weakly and inconsistently associated with higher levels of inflammation among women and men; the effects were diminished with the addition of psychosocial and behavioral covariates. These findings suggest marital quality is an important predictor of inflammation, especially among women.     

An Examination of Gender Role Attitude Change Patterns Among Continuously Married,Divorced, and Remarried Individuals

Gender role attitudes influence marital satisfaction and stability and are typically treated as stable traits in adulthood. Theory and retrospective studies suggest changes in the life course based on relationship histories; however, tests of these assumptions are virtually nonexistent. Analyses from a longitudinal, nationally representative U.S. sample of 590 married individuals who vary in their marital experiences revealed both period effects and distinct within-group change patterns. Over a 20-year time period all demonstrate a shift toward more egalitarian attitudes. However, contrary to retrospective accounts asserting a steep increase in egalitarian attitudes in remarriages, prospective data from men and women indicate a curvilinear pattern over time that is distinct from patterns observed for continuously married and divorced/not remarried individuals.     

Childhood parental loss and adult depression

Previous research demonstrates convincingly that childhood parental deaths and parental divorces have implications for adult well-being as defined by levels of depression, educational attainment, early age at marriage, and risk of divorce. What this research has failed to examine are the interconnections among these outcomes. Specifically, are the socioeconomic and marital outcomes of parental loss implicated in the observed higher levels of depression? This analysis takes a first step in answering this question. Using data from a sample of 1,755 married men and women, I estimated regression models which examine the extent to which adult socioeconomic status and current marital quality mediate and/or modify the loss-depression relationship. Parental divorce was strongly related to socioeconomic and marital outcomes. Furthermore, current marital quality contributed importantly to understanding the higher levels of depressed mood observed among persons from divorced homes. Parental death was much more weakly related to socioeconomic and marital outcomes, and these outcomes played little role in explaining its relationship to depression. Finally, all of these relationships were stronger among women than men. These findings support the utility of life-course approaches to understanding adult mental health.     

Past‐Year Sexual Inactivity Among Older Married Persons and Their Partners

Family scholars have focused on the onset of sexual activity early in the life course, but little is known about the cessation of sexual activity in relationships in later life. We use event‐history analysis techniques and logistic regression to identify the correlates of sexual inactivity among older married men and women. We analyze data for 1,502 married people from the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project, a nationally representative sample of 3,005 noninstitutionalized American men and women ages 57 to 85. We find 29% of the married persons report no sexual activity for the previous 12 months or more. Relationship duration, chronological age, and poor physical health are all independently associated with sexual inactivity. Characteristics such as marital happiness, premarital cohabitation, and remarriage are also associated with levels of inactivity or activity. Analyses also point to gender differences in the correlates of sexual inactivity.     

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.     

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.     

Divorce and Adult Psychological Well‐Being: Clarifying the Role of Gender and Child Age

Substantial evidence indicates that marital dissolution has negative consequences for adult well‐being. Because most research focuses on the average consequences of divorce, we know very little about factors that moderate this association. The present study tests the hypothesis that the effects of marital dissolution on adult well‐being are greatest for those with young children in the home at the time of marital dissolution. Analysis of data from the National Survey of Families and Households (N= 4,811 men and women married at the baseline interview) supports this hypothesis, especially among women. For women without young children, marital dissolution appears to have few negative consequences for psychological well‐being. Differential exposure to secondary stressors that accompany marital dissolution partly explains these patterns.     

Do the Married Really Live Longer? The Role of Cohabitation and Socioeconomic Status

Numerous studies have shown that married women and men experience the lowest mortality. Legal marital status, however, does not necessarily reflect today's social reality because individuals are classified as never married, widowed, or divorced even when they are living with a partner. Denmark is one of the forerunners of developments in coresidential partnerships and one of only a few countries where administrative sources provide individual‐level information on cohabitation for the whole population. Using register information from Statistics Denmark on 3,888,072 men and women ages 18–65, the author investigated mortality differences by living arrangement with hazard regression models. Overall, premature mortality was found to be lowest for married persons, followed by cohabiting persons. Adjusting for socioeconomic status reduced excess mortality of nonmarried individuals. Moreover, a mortality‐crossover effect emerged in which cohabiters with above‐average socioeconomic status had a lower risk of dying than married people. This finding was particularly pronounced for men.     

Family Influence on Physical Health During the Middle Years: The Case of Onset of Hypertension

Using survival analysis for 367 married women and 340 married men, this article investigates (a) change in hazard rates and survival probabilities with age for the onset of hypertension and (b) the influences of stressful marital and parental relationships on the hazard rates and survival probabilities of hypertension. Hazard and survival plots show that the risk for hypertension increases during the middle years to maximum, then decreases with age for both men and women. Log‐logistic survival models demonstrate that although marital stress significantly increases the likelihood of earlier hypertension among these long‐time married men and women, parental stress increases the likelihood of earlier hypertension only for women. These models control for the effects of stressful work conditions, health behaviors, hostility, and education. Employing a longitudinal research design strengthens confidence in the findings. The findings demonstrate that stressful close relationships may be more important determinants of physical health than is generally assumed.     

Intermarriage,Ethnic Identity,and Perceived Social Standing Among Asian Women in the United States

This study investigates the consequences of Asian women's intermarriage—whether it is associated with higher social standing and lower ethnic identity, using data on Asian women (N = 589) from the National Latino and Asian American Survey (NLAAS). The socioeconomic status of partners of women who intermarried and partners of women who married men of the same ethnicity are compared. The potential associations between intermarriage and two subjective measures—ethnic identity and perceived social standing—are explored. The study rejects the hypothesis based on the conventional belief that Asian women in the United States find “better” partners with higher socioeconomic status from other racial or ethnic groups. The findings support the view that marital assimilation leads to identificational assimilation and demonstrate that intermarriage is not associated with higher perceived social standing. The results suggest that educational and occupational endogamy plays a larger role in Asian women's intermarriage than social exchange.     

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.     

Greedy Spouse,Needy Parent: The Marital Dynamics of Gay,Lesbian, and Heterosexual Intergenerational Caregivers

It is well established that married heterosexual women do more intergenerational caregiving for aging parents and parents‐in‐law than married heterosexual men do. However, gay men and lesbian women's recent access to marriage presents new questions about the gendered marital dynamics of intergenerational caregiving. We use dyadic data with gay, lesbian, and heterosexual spouses to examine the marital dynamics of intergenerational caregivers. Results show that gay and lesbian spouses provided intensive time and emotional support for an intergenerational caregiver. In contrast, heterosexual women described their intergenerational caregiving as rarely supported and at times even undermined by their spouse. Dyadic data on heterosexual men corroborate women's accounts; heterosexual men rarely reported providing intergenerational caregiving, and thus heterosexual women rarely described providing spousal support. These findings provide new insight into the intermingled roles of “greedy” marriages and “needy” parents, wherein marital negotiations around caregiving vary by gender for gay, lesbian, and heterosexual marital dyads.     

Age at Coresidence,Premarital Cohabitation,and Marriage Dissolution: 1985–2009

Does the age at which premarital cohabitors moved in together explain why they have been found to have an increased risk of marital dissolution? Explanations for the increased risk of marriage dissolution among those who marry young center on marital role preparation; for premarital cohabitors, many, if not most, of these roles began at the onset of cohabitation, not marriage. Analyses of the 1995, 2002, and 2006–2010 waves of the National Survey of Family Growth (N = 7,037) revealed that age at coresidence explained a substantial portion of the higher marital dissolution risk of premarital cohabitors. In comparisons standardized by age at coresidence, the difference in risk of marital dissolution between premarital cohabitors and those who married without prior cohabitation (“direct marriers”) was much smaller than in comparisons standardized by age at marriage, and in some models this difference was not significant. Selection into direct marriage and premarital cohabitation was also examined.     

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.