Using typologies outlined by Gottman and Fitzpatrick as well as institutional and companionate models of marriage, the authors conducted a latent class analysis of marital conflict trajectories using 20 years of data from the Marital Instability Over the Life Course study. Respondents were in one of three groups: high, medium (around the mean), or…

This study examined associations among marital quality, coparenting, and parenting self-efficacy in parents of young children. Of special interest were possible spillover and stress-buffering effects of the marital and coparenting relationships. The authors sampled 175 married and cohabiting couples. Participants were recruited via an online…

Using longitudinal data covering 25 years from 1979 to 2004, the author examines the relationship between wives' economic resources and the risk of marital dissolution. The author considers the effects of labor force participation, income, and relative income while accounting for potential endogeneity of wives' economic resources. The extent to…

This study examines the ways in which Japanese corporate transnationalism affects husbands' involvement in family life and marital relationships primarily from a perspective of wives. It is based on interviews with 22 Japanese wives and 4 husbands. Studies of Japanese corporate transnationalism treat men as mere supervisors to local workers or…

This research examines trends in a broad set of reproductive and marital behaviors in Ghana, focusing on religious group differences. These comparisons provide evidence of how family trends are constrained by religious identity in a less developed country. Three waves of the Ghana Demographic and Health Surveys are used to track trends in the age…

The authors examine whether young adults who experienced their parents' divorce and new relationships have different relationship trajectories than those who spent their childhoods living with biological parents in married-couple families. The analysis is based on longitudinal reports from more than 1,500 children from Wave 1 of the 1987-1988…

The authors used data from the Add Health study to estimate the effects of parents' marital status and relationship distress on daughters' early family formation transitions. Outcomes included traditional transitions (marriage and marital births) and nontraditional transitions (cohabitation and nonmarital births). Relationship distress among…

This study tests status inconsistency theory by examining the associations between wives' and husbands' relative statuses--that is, earnings, work-time, occupational, and educational inconsistencies--and marital quality and global happiness. The author asks three questions: (a) Is status inconsistency associated with marital quality and overall…

Although previous work has attributed the instability of African marriages to the diffusion of Western norms and values in the region, fewer attempts have been made to empirically assess how Africa's internal institutional structures, such as extended kinship ties, impact marital outcomes. Guided by rational choice and exchange theories, we argue…

This study examined direct and indirect associations between overt and covert interparental conflict (IPC), parent-child conflict, and their links to youth problem behaviors. Data were collected from a sample of 641 school-age youth, ages 12 to 18 years, using a school-based survey. Analyses yielded direct positive linkages from overt IPC to…

Examines the role of premarital cohabitation as a determinant of cohabitation after marital disruption. The author proposed that people who cohabitated prior to first marriage were more likely to cohabitate after marital disruption than those who did not. It was found that the hazard rate of postmarital cohabitation was over 50% higher for…

Guided by a life course perspective, this study investigated whether the psychological consequences of transitioning into a caregiver role for a biological parent, parent-in-law, spouse, other kin, or nonkin among married adults might be moderated by marital role quality. Using longitudinal data from a national sample of 1,842 married adults aged…

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…

In this article, the author uses data from the 1995 National Survey of Family Growth to examine the impact of childhood living arrangements on the characteristics of marriages formed by women between 1970 and 1989.The focus is on sociodemographic characteristics of marriage that may be taken to indicate a heightened risk of marital stress or…

Tested effects of 3 religious homogamy types (denominational affiliation, church attendance, and Bible belief) upon marital satisfaction and stability using national probability sample of adults in over 6,000 households. Found denominational affiliation most critical although church attendance contributed only slightly to marital success. Found no…