Midlife Marital Happiness and Ethnic Culture: A Life Course Perspective

Abstract

It is well established that marital relationships remain integral to individual and family well -being and that some marriages are happier than others. It is also well documented that continuing high rates of immigration contribute 10 increasingly diverse marital patterns in Canadian society. Drawing from life course theory, the purpose of this paper is to further explore cultural, socio-demographic, and relationship factors and their association with midlife happiness. Data are drawn from in-depth interviews with a sample of 390 middle-generation married parents living in Metro Vancouver, British Columbia. Canada from four cultural groups: British, Chinese, lndo/East Indian, and Southern-European. Both quantitative and qualitative results reveal similarities in midlife marital happiness across these four cultural groups although perceived marital stressors underlying unhappy marriages vary across groups. Moreover, immigration status and religiosity are associated with greater marital happiness. Yet, relationship dynamic factors (i.e., intimacy satisfaction, doing activities together) surface as the most significant predictors of marital happiness. Implications for aging parental marital relations are also highlighted, with emphasis on those parents who are at greater risk for relationship stress, strain, or crisis.