In the past two decades, several fertility variables have been shown to have an effect on marital stability: presence or absence of children, child spacing, birth timing, and total number of children. This paper studies the effect on marital stability of the planning of fertility. (Author)

Although Judith Wallerstein's research on children with divorced parents has been influential, many quantitative family scholars have criticized her methods and conclusions. This article provides examples from the Marital Instability Over the Life Course study to illustrate the magnitude of divorce effects and concludes with a call for a…

Surveyed married women obtaining abortions to examine assumptions concerning spousal notification held by federal courts. Results suggest that the assumption that notification and discussion promote marital harmony is plausible for only circumscribed subset of women whose marriages are already harmonious. (Author/NB)

Examined four models of ways premarital cohabitation may affect marital quality using interview data from a national probability sample of 2,033 married persons. Found cohabitation was negatively related to marital interaction and positively related to marital disagreement, proneness to divorce, and the probability of divorce in nonminority…

A study of 3,284 married women hypothesizes that nontraditional working women are more likely to experience marital disruption than traditional working women. Number of hours of paid employment per week was negatively related to marital stability for women holding nontraditional gender ideologies but not for women with traditional views. (JPS)

Investigated relationship between cohabitation and subsequent marital dissolution among 3,300 adults in United States. Consistent with results for Sweden, found that cohabitation in United States was associated with greater hazard of dissolution even after counting time spent in unmarried cohabitation as part of marital duration. (Author/NB)

Explores how couples cope with marital conflict from the early years of their relationships to the present time. Focuses on conflict management styles from face-to-face confrontation to avoidance, as well as gender and ethnicity influences on styles of coping with conflict. Implications for social work practice are discussed. (Author/MKA)

This article investigates the effect of inconsistency between parental marital conflict and disruption on children's health. Inconsistent situations arise when minimal marital conflict precedes disruption or when marital conflict is high but there is no disruption. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, two alternative…

This study examined the specific relations and processes underlying the association between marital disturbance and child maladjustment. Data were gathered on 51 9- through 12-year-olds, along with their parents, on specific dimensions of marital discord, children's coping responses to conflict, and child adjustment. Parent reports, child reports…

Previous research has suggested that similarities and differences in specific personality factors are associated with differences in marital stability. Most findings were based on assessments of personality after marriage, thus confounding the effects of marriage on personality. This study was conducted to examine congruence between spouses'…

This study evaluated whether alcoholics who receive relapse prevention (RP) sessions in the year after a short-term behavioral marital therapy (BMT) do better at long-term follow-up than do those not receiving the additional RP. Sixty couples with an alcoholic husband, after participating in 10 weekly BMT couples group sessions, were assigned…

Used data from probability sample of 10,472 ever-married Canadians to examine effects of premarital cohabitation on later marital stability. Results suggest that premarital cohabitation has a positive effect on staying married. Positive effect remained when length of marriage and age at marriage were controlled. (Author/NB)

Investigates the effects of late marriage on marital instability. Persons married later in life were found to be more heterogeneous in their choice of mate. No support was found for the hypothesis that late marriage may be associated with marital instability because such spouses are "too set in their ways." (Author/ABB)

Examined characteristics of continuing relationship between former spouses (N=118) as function of parent status, gender, length of marriage, and time since separation. Certain aspects of the continuing relationship were found to be significantly related to each of these demographic characteristics. (Author/NRB)

Examines the age-at-marriage/marital instability relationship in a national sample (N=1,715). Results suggested that the relationship could be largely explained by inadequate role performance, though the specific inadequacies in performance differed somewhat for the early and later marrieds. (NRB)