Marital Outcomes Research Articles

Gender norm conflict and marital outcomes

AbstractWe investigate the impact of male–female conflict over gender norms on marital outcomes. As marriage requires mutual agreement regarding the role of husband and wife, we hypothesize that a person who is less likely to encounter a potential mate with similar gender norms will face a lower chance of marrying. Even if two parties marry despite a difference in gender norms, their marriage may be more vulnerable to external shocks, making divorce more likely relative to their counterparts without gender norm conflict. Finally, we predict that in the presence of gender norm conflict, high-skilled individuals may be less likely to get or stay married relative to low-skilled individuals, as the former group faces better outside options. Estimates from an analysis of U.S. marriage markets differentiated by birth cohort, state, race, and skill level support our theoretical predictions. Additional extensions explore heterogeneous effects and additional outcomes such as the presence of children in the household.

Examining Patterns of Mexican Immigrant Spouses’ Contextual Pressures and Links with Marital Satisfaction and Negativity

Previous research examined links from economic and cultural adaptation pressures to marital satisfaction and marital behavior. Results generally suggested a negative association between these sources of pressure and marital outcomes. However, the extant research is lacking given its inattention to the extent to which husbands and wives experience varying patterns of interrelated pressures and the differential links between patterns of economic and cultural adaptation pressures and marital outcomes. Using latent profile analysis, we identified four distinct patterns of economic and cultural adaptation pressures, underscoring the diversity in experiences among a seemingly homogeneous population of low-income Mexican immigrant couples. Furthermore, differences in marital satisfaction and marital negativity were identified, highlighting how varying patterns of pressures are differentially linked to marital quality.

Classed Pathways to Marriage: Hometown Ties, College Networks, and Life after Graduation.

This article identifies mechanisms through which social class background shapes the marital outcomes of college-going white American women. Scholars are interested in the relative influences of ascriptive and achieved characteristics on mate selection. Research indicates that social class background continues to influence the marriage patterns of college-educated Americans but does not identify the mechanisms through which this occurs. The study analyzes six waves of longitudinal interviews with 45 women from differing social class backgrounds. The first interview was conducted at age 18, when women started college at a Midwestern public university. The final interview was collected at age 30, and was supplemented by a survey collecting the income, education, occupation, and debt of women and their spouses. Women from privileged backgrounds were more likely to marry and married men who earned substantially more than the partners of less privileged women. Differences resulted from lifelong variation in social networks, originating in childhood. College did not interrupt long-standing exclusionary class networks. After graduation, social class background shaped where women moved, as well as with whom they worked and socialized. Higher education in the contemporary US may reinforce rather than interrupt class homogamy in marriage, even when students attend the same schools. The role of higher education in shaping classed social networks is in need of further study.

Height and marital outcomes in the Netherlands, birth years 1841-1900

Adult body height appears to be significantly associated with marital outcomes: taller men across contexts have been found to be more likely to be married, and more likely to be married at younger ages. We are interested in exploring both outcomes individually and simultaneously, while using an unique, individual-level dataset of Dutch men and their brothers born between 1841 and 1900. To do so, we exploit survival models and cure models. While survival models yield a single estimate for the hazard (or age at) marriage, cure models yield two: one for the likelihood of marriage, and one for the hazard of first marriage. Cure models thus account for selection into marriage, while survival models do not. We find that, in the survival analyses, being in the shortest 20 % of heights is associated with later ages of marriage, relative to being average height. However, when we account for selection into marriage with cure models, we find that height is no longer associated with age at marriage. Instead, we see that height is associated with the likelihood of being married, with being in the bottom 20 % of heights associated with a 56.1 % decreased likelihood of being married, relative to being average height. We therefore conclude that height may be a gatekeeper for access to marriage, but it appears that other factors – likely related to the ability to set up an independent household – are more important in determining the timing of marriage for our research population.

Gender Norm Conflict and Marital Outcomes

Gender Norm Conflict and Marital Outcomes

Cognitive Functioning, Gender, and Marital Quality Among Older Married Couples: A Dyadic Approach

Older spouses influence one another in myriad ways, and dyadic effects of marital quality on health and well-being have been well-established. However, little attention has been paid to dyadic implications of cognitive functioning, including for spouses’ perceptions of the relationship itself. This study examines associations of older husbands’ and wives’ cognitive functioning with both partners’ reports of four marital quality outcomes. Structural equation modeling analyzed data from 1,414 opposite-sex couples drawn from the 2016 wave of the Health and Retirement Study. Findings revealed that (a) wives’ poorer cognitive functioning was associated with wives’ reporting greater closeness and higher ratings of enjoying time with a spouse, whereas (b) husbands’ poorer cognitive functioning was associated with wives’ reporting greater marital strain, lower marital support, lower closeness, and lower ratings of enjoying time with a spouse. This suggests that cognitive functioning/impairment has dyadic consequences for marital quality, which are highly gendered.

Husband–Wife Religious Denomination Homogamy and Marital Satisfaction Over Time: The Moderating Role of Religious Intensity

ObjectiveThis study examines the extent to which homogamy and heterogamy in husband–wife religious denomination are associated with initial levels of marital satisfaction and slopes of marital satisfaction over 17 years examining whether those associations are moderated by husbands' and wives' religious intensity.BackgroundLongitudinal studies on religion and marital outcomes that incorporate a dyadic component are relatively rare, and few studies have examined couple‐level religiosity with respect to long‐term marital outcomes.MethodOn the basis of six waves of the Longitudinal Study of Generations data between 1988 and 2005, we selected 173 married couples in the baby boom generation and analyzed their musing dyadic growth curve modeling.ResultsHusbands' and wives' religious denomination homogamy was significantly associated with initial levels and slopes of both husbands' and wives' marital satisfaction. In addition, husbands with highly religious wives of the same denomination exhibited greater initial levels of marital satisfaction than those who had wives of weaker religious intensity with a different denomination.ConclusionIn this research, denominational similarity between spouses was not only beneficial to marital satisfaction but was also paired with the degree of religious intensity.ImplicationFamily researchers and practitioners are encouraged to acknowledge the characteristics of couples' religious contexts and their influences on marital outcomes over the family life course. Because the LSOG couples represent mostly White and underrepresented families from other ethnicities, there should be caution in generalizing these findings to the general population.

Long-Term Physical Health Consequences of Financial and Marital Stress in Middle-Aged Couples.

To examine psychological health as a mechanism linking economic pressure and marital instability in the early middle years to poor physical health in later life. Although previous research suggests that sustained stressful marital experience may lead to mental and physical health problems, little is known about how contextual factors, such as economic pressure, impact marital outcomes, and how changes in marital attributes influence health outcomes in a longitudinal and dyadic context. Utilizing an actor-partner interdependence model within a latent growth curve approach and prospective data from couples in enduring marriages, we examined the associations between family economic pressure, marital instability, and mental health over their early middle years (1989-1994) and subsequent physical health in later adulthood (2015). Analyses assessed a couple-level pathway and an individual pathway involving within-spouse and between-spouse effects. During the middle years, family financial difficulties were linked to reduced marital stability, which was associated with increased mental health challenges. The findings also reinforced the salient role of psychological distress for subsequent physical health outcomes as husbands' and wives' anxiety symptoms over their early middle years contributed to declines in their physical health outcomes in later adulthood. A partner effect was noted between husbands' anxiety and wives' physical health. For couples, experiences of financial and marital stress in their early middle years can have long-lasting detrimental impacts on their physical health in later adulthood.

Applying the Vulnerability Stress Adaptation Model of Marriage to Couples Raising an Autistic Child: A Call for Research on Adaptive Processes.

Parents of childrenon the autism spectrum are particularly susceptible to strain in their romantic relationships due to unique risk factors. While some relationships deteriorate, however, others endure and thrive. The Vulnerability Stress Adaptation (VSA) Model of Marriage (Karney & Bradbury, 1995; Fig. 1) offers a framework to explain, not only poor marital outcomes, but also the process by which degradation of relationships occurs over time. The VSA Model posits that a combination of internal (within-person) vulnerabilities and external stressors influence relationship quality and, in turn, stability, by affecting couples' abilities to collaborate to adapt to stressors and solve problems (i.e., adaptive processes). With robust theoretical grounding, this review comprehensively summarizes and integrates literature pertaining to the romantic relationships of couples raising an autistic child through the lens of the VSA Model. Vulnerabilities, stressors, and adaptive processes relevant to these couples are identified, and empirical evidence pertaining to the proposed pathways in the VSA Model is explored. The body of research reviewed provides support for many of the proposed pathways in the VSA Model, especially related to certain stressors (i.e., child behavior problems) and vulnerabilities (i.e., parent depression), yet it falls short in exploring mechanisms by which these factors beget marital dysfunction (i.e., through adaptive processes). Additional gaps and methodological limitations in the literature are highlighted, and recommendations for future research are provided.

Within-Couple Personality Concordance Over Time: The Importance of Personality Synchrony for Perceived Spousal Support.

Within-couple similarities in personality traits tend to be positively associated with relationship well-being. However, research in this area is typically based on cross-sectional designs, thereby limiting examination of longitudinal personality concordance. Given that life experiences shape within-person change in personality, and that partners within a couple often experience similar life events, investigation of within-couple personality synchrony and associations with marital outcomes is warranted. Using data from 3,988 couples (mean age at baseline = 67.0 years, SD = 9.6), multilevel dyadic growth models estimated within-couple similarity in baseline levels, change, and occasion-to-occasion variability for each of the Big Five personality traits over an 8-year follow-up. Bivariate growth models examined the effect of within-couple similarity on perceived spousal support, accounting for dependency within couples. Adjusting for baseline age, education, functional ability, and relationship length, analyses revealed within-couple concordance between baseline levels of all 5 personality traits, as well as correlated within-couple fluctuations in neuroticism, extraversion, and openness over time. Similarity in openness, agreeableness, and neuroticism trajectories predicted spousal support. Couples were most similar in openness, showing correlated intercepts, change, and variability, and this longitudinal synchrony was particularly important for perceived spousal support in women. These findings provide evidence for longitudinal personality synchrony over time within older adult couples. Further, concordance in neuroticism, extraversion, and openness predicted perceived spousal support, though there may be some gender differences in personality dynamics and relationship well-being. Effects of similarity were relatively small compared to actor and partner effects of these traits.

Women's Marital Experiences Following Premarital Fertility in Sub‐Saharan Africa

AbstractObjectiveThe aim of the study was to offer a descriptive overview of the stability and quality of marriages formed by women following premarital fertility in contemporary sub‐Saharan Africa.BackgroundPremarital sex and fertility rates are high in many sub‐Saharan African countries, yet we know little about how premarital childbirth, or even premarital conception, corresponds with women's subsequent marital outcomes. For instance, it is unknown whether premarital fertility is associated with forming unions that are less stable, polygynous, or more violent.MethodWe analyze Demographic and Health Survey data for 25 sub‐Saharan African countries to describe women's marital experiences following a premarital pregnancy or premarital birth (relative to marital pregnancy and birth). We estimate country‐specific, two‐stage Heckman probit models to understand whether, conditional on having married, premarital pregnancy or premarital birth is associated with union instability, and among women currently married, polygyny and intimate partner violence.ResultsIn most countries, unions following a premarital pregnancy or premarital birth were less stable relative to unions in which pregnancy occurred only after marriage. Premarital births were also associated with a higher likelihood of entering a polygynous union, especially in West and Central African countries, as well as a greater likelihood of being in a physically violent union, particularly in East and Southern African countries.ConclusionThe associations between premarital fertility and women's subsequent marital experiences raise questions about the broader health and life course implications for the women and children involved.

Implicit and Explicit Childhood Financial Socialization: Protective Factors for Marital Financial Disagreements

Research to date has shown that childhood financial socialization is significantly associated with the financial attitudes and behaviors of children, youth, and adults. However, the extent to which childhood financial socialization is connected to marital outcomes remains largely unknown. Using data from 1,473 newly married couples who participated in a nationally representative study, we examined the relationship between childhood financial socialization and reported marital financial disagreements by utilizing actor-partner interdependence structural equation models (APIM SEM). Our results suggest that implicit (i.e. parental modeling) and explicit (i.e. direct conversations or experiential learning) financial socialization significantly and negatively relate to marital financial disagreements for both men and women. Further, having a spouse who was explicitly taught about finances is significantly and negatively associated with financial disagreements, independently of one’s own explicit financial socialization. These results highlight the importance of considering marital outcomes in the financial socialization literature and suggest that childhood financial socialization is a protective factor for marital financial disagreements.

After the Honeymoon: Neural and Genetic Correlates of Romantic Love in Newlywed Marriages.

In Western culture, romantic love is commonly a basis for marriage. Although it is associated with relationship satisfaction, stability, and individual well-being, many couples experience declines in romantic love. In newlyweds, specifically, changes in love predict marital outcomes. However, the biological mechanisms underlying the critical transition to marriage are unknown. Thus, for the first time, we explored the neural and genetic correlates of romantic love in newlyweds. Nineteen first-time newlyweds were scanned (with functional MRI) while viewing face images of the partner versus a familiar acquaintance, around the time of the wedding (T1) and 1 year after (T2). They also provided saliva samples for genetic analysis (AVPR1a rs3, OXTR rs53576, COMT rs4680, and DRD4-7R), and completed self-report measures of relationship quality including the Eros (romantic love) scale. We hypothesized that romantic love is a developed form of the mammalian drive to find, and keep, preferred mates; and that its maintenance is orchestrated by the brain’s reward system. Results showed that, at both time points, romantic love maintenance (Eros difference score: T2-T1) was associated with activation of the dopamine-rich substantia nigra in response to face images of the partner. Interactions with vasopressin, oxytocin, and dopamine genes implicated in pair-bonding (AVPR1a rs3, OXTR rs53576, COMT rs4680, and DRD4-7R) also conferred strong activation in the dopamine-rich ventral tegmental area at both time points. Consistent with work highlighting the role of sexual intimacy in relationships, romantic love maintenance showed correlations in the paracentral lobule (genital region) and cortical areas involved in sensory and cognitive processing (occipital, angular gyrus, insular cortex). These findings suggest that romantic love, and its maintenance, are orchestrated by dopamine-, vasopressin- and oxytocin-rich brain regions, as seen in humans and other monogamous animals. We also provide genetic evidence of polymorphisms associated with oxytocin, vasopressin and dopamine function that affect the propensity to sustain romantic love in early stage marriages. We conclude that romantic love maintenance is part of a broad mammalian strategy for reproduction and long-term attachment that is influenced by basic reward circuitry, complex cognitive processes, and genetic factors.

Abstract WMP90: Marital Status and Post-Stroke Outcomes

Introduction: Although the impacts of marital status on health have long been recognized, little is known about its role in stroke outcomes. The study examined the association of marital status with neuropsychiatric, cognitive, functional, and quality of life outcomes at 90 days post-stroke in a population-based sample. Methods: Data were obtained from the Brain Attack Surveillance in Corpus Christi (BASIC) project (2009-2016). Post-stroke outcomes included neurological status assessed by the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale, cognitive function assessed by the Modified Mini-Mental State Examination, functioning assessed by an activities of daily living (ADL)/instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) score, depression assessed by the 8-item Patient Health Questionnaire, and quality of life assessed by the short-form Stroke Specific Quality of Life scale. Linear or Tobit regression models were used to examine the association between marital status and stroke outcomes, accounting for attrition. Results: Among 1,226 ischemic or hemorrhagic cases, mean age was 67.6 (SD=12.3), half were women, and three-fifths were Mexican American; 23.0% were widowed, 20.1% were divorced/separated, and 8.4% were never married. Widowed participants were more likely to be female, aged above 75, and less educated than other groups. After adjustment for age, sex, ethnicity, education and stroke severity, compared with those married, those widowed had significantly worse cognitive function and quality of life, those never married had worse neurological and cognitive outcomes, and those divorced/separated had more depressive symptoms and poorer quality of life (Table). Conclusions: Being unmarried at stroke onset is associated with worse outcomes after stroke, and the outcome profiles vary by marital status. Further research should investigate potential mechanisms and develop interventions to improve outcomes of unmarried stroke survivors.

Assimilation and ethnic marriage squeeze in early 20th century America: A gender perspective.

BACKGROUNDDuring the 19th and early 20th centuries, large waves of international immigrants, often heterogeneous in terms of age and sex structure, arrived in the United States. Within a relatively short time, many of these immigrants were assimilated. While prior studies have identified an impact of the marriage squeeze on intermarriage, the role of gender is less known.METHODSWe use data from the 1930 census to examine the role played by variation in the sex ratios of the six largest immigrant groups at the beginning of the 20th century on marital outcomes by sex.RESULTSOur analyses show that the probability of marrying outside one’s ethnic group in this period is strongly tied to local ethnic sex ratios. Marital outcomes are affected for both sexes, but sex ratios are found to be more influential on males marrying out of their ethnic group. While a surplus of one’s own sex increases the probability of exogamy for males, it is likely to increase the probability of being single for females.CONTRIBUTIONOur findings highlight the importance of ethnic sex ratios in local marriage markets at a critical juncture of American immigration and its consequences. We focus on an understudied aspect of this process: gender differences in the association between sex ratios and marital assimilation. We show that marital decisions differed by sex and that the high levels of intermarriage in this period are more likely to be explained by unbalanced sex ratios for males than for females.

Child Sex Composition, Parental Sex Preferences, and Marital Outcomes: Evidence From a Matrilineal Context.

The authors study matrilineal settings in rural Malawi, a southeast African country, to assess if women experience better marital outcomes in the presence of daughters and if so whether daughter preference plays a role. A provocative finding in family sociology is that couples with sons experience better marital outcomes relative to those with daughters. Sociologists contend that these marital benefits are attributable to the gender system fostering greater closeness between fathers and sons, a preference for sons, or economic, cultural, and social incentives for fathers to invest more in unions that have produced sons. Extrapolating these arguments beyond son-inspired marital benefits in patriarchal settings suggests that the reverse process-daughter-inspired marital benefits-could prevail in matrilineal contexts. The authors analyze three rounds of the nationally representative Malawi Demographic and Health Survey. They estimate three series of parity-specific, multivariable logistic regression models to assess the associations between child sex composition and marital outcomes (two forms of relationship abuse and polygyny) and model each outcome among the full sample of women with one to four children and control for number of children, thus conveying the average effect of sex composition across parities. Women with daughters-particularly women with only daughters-in predominately matrilineal, rural communities in the central and southern regions of Malawi are more likely to be in monogamous versus polygynous unions and are less likely to have experienced emotionally abusive and controlling behaviors. We find little evidence that women and men explicitly prefer or pursue daughters. The study shows that a matrilineal gender system can influence marital dynamics in the presence of daughters even without fostering an overwhelming preference for them.

Family of Origin Predictors of Marital Outcomes Among Coptic Orthodox Christian Egyptian-American Couples

Despite the importance of family within the Coptic community, the extant literature on Coptic family relationships is remarkably limited. The purpose of this study was to explore parental marital quality and family of origin (FOO) quality as predictors of marital satisfaction and marital stability among Coptic Orthodox Christian Egyptian-American couples. Self-report survey data from 255 married Coptic couples living in the United States were analyzed using an actor-partner interdependence model. Results indicated husband FOO quality predicted both marital satisfaction (β =.51, SE = .18, p = .005) and marital stability (β = .51, SE = .22, p = .022) among Coptic husbands but not among Coptic wives. Results further indicated wife parental marital quality, wife FOO quality, and husband parental marital quality were not predictive of marital satisfaction or marital stability among Coptic husbands or wives. Clinical implications, limitations, and recommendations for future research are discussed.

Marriage Market Equilibrium, Qualifications, and Ability

We study marital sorting on academic qualifications and latent ability in an equilibrium marriage market model using the 1972 UK Raising of the School-Leaving Age (RoSLA) legislation as a natural experiment that induced a sudden, large shift in the distribution of academic qualifications in affected cohorts, but plausibly had no impact on the distribution of ability. We show that a Choo- Siow (2006) style model with sorting on cohort, qualifications, and latent ability is identified and estimable using the RoSLA-induced population shifts. We find that the RoSLA isolated low ability individuals in the marriage market, and affected marital outcomes of individuals whose qualification attainment were unaffected. We also decompose the difference in marriage probabilities between unqualified individuals and those with basic qualifications into causal effects stemming from ability and qualification differences. Differences in marriage probabilities are almost entirely driven by ability.

Marriage Market Equilibrium, Qualifications, and Ability

We study marital sorting on academic qualifications and latent ability in an equilibrium marriage market model using the 1972 UK Raising of the School-Leaving Age (RoSLA) legislation as a natural experiment that induced a sudden, large shift in the distribution of academic qualifications in affected cohorts, but plausibly had no impact on the distribution of ability. We show that a Choo and Siow (2006) model with sorting on cohort, qualifications, and latent ability is identified and estimable using the RoSLA-induced population shifts. We find that the RoSLA isolated low ability individuals in the marriage market, and affected marital outcomes of individuals whose qualification attainment were unaffected. We also decompose the difference in marriage probabilities between unqualified individuals and those with basic qualifications into causal effects stemming from ability and qualification differences. Differences in marriage probabilities are almost entirely driven by ability.

The Effect of the ACA Medicaid Expansion on Marriage Behavior

paper investigates the impact of the 2014 Medicaid expansions on marital behavior. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) encouraged states to expand Medicaid and thereby increase insurance options for low-income individuals. Contributing to earlier work showing evidence of a link between insurance coverage and incentives to marry, we test whether the Medicaid expansions affected marriage and divorce decisions. Using data from the American Community Survey from 2008 to 2018 and estimating difference-in-differences models, we test the impact of Medicaid expansion on both stock and flow marital outcomes. As a first-stage effect, we show that the expansions increased Medicaid coverage by 31.15 percent in first-time expansion states. When evaluating the effects of the policy on marriage behavior, we find that Medicaid expansions led to a 0.75 percent reduction in the stock of married people, a 4.15 percent reduction in the likelihood of having married in the past year, and a 3.61 percent increase in having had a recent divorce. We believe the underlying mechanism to be twofold. First, Medicaid expansion led to increased insurance options, which decreased reliance on spousal health insurance coverage. Second, by changing eligibility thresholds, Medicaid led to people choosing to forego marriage or get divorced to meet post-policy program eligibility restrictions.