Marital Attitudes, Perceived Mate Availability, and Subjective Well-Being among Partnered African American Men and Women

Abstract

This study examined attitudinal and structural correlates of personal and relationship well-being among 139 African Americans in romantic partnerships, including marriage. Multiple regression analyses indicated that marital valuation is an important predictor of subjective well-being among partnered African American men. Among women, the value of relationships more generally, rather than marriage, was predictive of happiness and marital/relationship satisfaction. Although perceived mate availability was not a salient predictor of subjective well-being in the overall sample, it was related to depressive symptomatology among men. Income and education were unrelated to well-being. Results suggest that men who value marriage are more likely to reap the benefits ofpartnerships. They also suggest that the relative shortage of available men has no direct impact on women's mental health, perhaps because of a sense that the situation is systemically determined rather than a measure of personal adequacy.