Marital Happiness in Time of Change: the Case of United Arab Emirates (UAE)

Abstract

Abstract This study examined the extent to which marital happiness in the UAE can be correctly predicted from the knowledge of individuals’ subjective evaluations of their marital relational factors, including communication patterns, conflict resolution, marital role relationships, managing finance, children’s responsibilities sharing, and flexibility and closeness while holding constant the effects of the socioeconomic and demographic characteristics of those individuals. To that end, self-administered questionnaires and in-depth interviews were conducted by trained research assistants. The study revealed important insights corresponding to marital happiness in the UAE, and predicted a number of factors that appeared to significantly predict this very important issue in society, in particular, communication patterns and conflict resolution style.