Abstract: Although getting married is no longer a requirement for social acceptance, most people do marry in their lifetimes, and couples across the socioeconomic spectrum wish their marriages to be satisfying and long lasting. This review evaluates the past decade of research on the determinants of satisfaction and stability in marriage, concluding that the scholarship of the past 10 years has undermined three assumptions that were formerly accepted as conventional wisdom. First, research exploiting methods such as latent class growth analyses reveal that, for most couples, marital satisfaction does not decline over time but in fact remains relatively stable for long periods. Second, contrary to predictions of behavioral models of marriage, negative communication between spouses can be difficult to change, does not necessarily lead to more satisfying relationships when it is changed, and does not always predict distress in the first place. Third, dyadic processes that are reliably adaptive for middle‐class and more affluent couples may operate differently in lower income couples, suggesting that influential models of marriage may not generalize to couples living in diverse environments. Thus, the accumulated research of the past 10 years indicates that the tasks of understanding and promoting marital satisfaction and stability are more complex than we appreciated at the start of the decade, raising important questions that beg to be answered in the years ahead.
Do Conclusions About Marriage Generalize?
Income as a Moderator
Twenty-five years ago, the vast majority of
research on marriage had been conducted on
samples composed primarily of middle-class,
college-educated, mostly White couples (Karney & Bradbury, 1995). In the intervening years,
the profile of the typical sample in marital
research has expanded, but samples of convenience continue to dominate, reflecting a
widespread assumption about the dynamics of
marriage: What is true for the narrow slice of
couples that have been studied extensively is
likely to be true for the more diverse couples that
lie outside the sampling frame of most studies.
During the past decade, this assumption has
been questioned by burgeoning lines of research
on Hispanic marriages (e.g., Orengo-Aguayo,
2015), African American marriages (e.g.,
Cutrona, Russell, Burzette, Wesner, & Bryant,
2011; Stanik, McHale, & Crouter, 2013), and
most recently same-sex marriages (e.g., Chen &
van Ours, 2018) to mention only a few dimensions of diversity that the field has explored. To
illustrate the consequences of broader sampling
for deepening our understanding of marriage,
we devote this section to reviewing one dimension of diversity that was examined at length
during the past 10 years: income.
The possibility that marital process may vary
at different levels of income is worth highlighting because, a decade ago, this possibility was
distinctly overlooked. When the federal government launched the Healthy Marriage Initiative
in the early 2000s, the goal of the program
was to promote stronger, more stable relationships among lower income couples (Office of
Family Assistance, 2012). Yet at the time data
on the relationships of lower income couples
were scarce. Nevertheless, the development
and implementation of skills-based relationship
education programs proceeded apace, guided
by the assumption that the conclusions of prior
research on relationship processes among relatively affluent, mostly White couples would
generalize to the lower income, more diverse
communities targeted by the new initiative.
Within the past decade, the results of nationwide, multisite, longitudinal evaluations of
these programs were released, and they were
not encouraging. Despite their great cost and the
sincere efforts of well-intentioned administrators and educators across the country, the impact
of relationship education on the well-being and
stability of lower income couples proved to
be negligible (Lundquist et al., 2014; Wood,
Moore, Clarkwest, & Killewald, 2014). Abandoning the assumption that the foundations
of satisfying and stable marriage are common
across income groups, leading observers called
for research directly examining how basic processes contributing to successful intimacy may
in fact vary among different segments of society
(Johnson, 2012; McNulty, 2016).
Empirical advances
Research heeding this call during the past
decade has revealed numerous ways that
basic marital processes vary across levels of
socioeconomic status. What does not vary
is the value of marriage itself. Although
rates of marriage are substantially lower in
lower income communities than in more
affluent communities, marriage remains
a cherished goal across income groups
(Garrett-Peters & Burton, 2015; Scott, Schelar,
Manlove, & Cui, 2009; Trail & Karney, 2012).
Instead, income groups can be distinguished by
the sorts of challenges couples face in attempting to reach that goal. Lower income couples,
similar to lower income individuals, report
greater mental health problems, higher stress,
and, not surprisingly, more financial strain than
their higher income peers (Maisel & Karney,
2012). When asked directly about challenges
in their marriages, lower income couples are
more likely to identify finances and substance
abuse, rather than communication and household chores, as their most salient sources of
conflict (Jackson et al., 2016; Trail & Karney,
2012). To the extent that the problems of lower
income couples are more severe, their marital
interactions are likely to be more difficult as
well (Williamson, Hanna, Lavner, Bradbury, &
Karney, 2013). Indeed, Cutrona et al. (2003),
drawing on observer ratings of videotaped interactions between spouses, showed that couples
living in more disadvantaged neighborhoods
expressed less warmth with each other than
couples living in higher income neighborhoods.
Do their greater challenges mean that lower
income couples are less satisfied with their
relationships than more affluent couples? In
fact, lower income couples are not less satisfied
with their relationships on average, despite their
higher divorce rates and the more severe difficulties they encounter. Although perceptions of
greater financial strain have been consistently
associated with lower relationship satisfaction
(e.g., Conger & Conger, 2008), household
income and relationship satisfaction are unrelated (Hardie & Lucas, 2010; Maisel & Karney,
2012). Yet poorer couples do experience their
marriages differently than wealthier couples.
Longitudinal research tracking marital satisfaction across the first years of marriage reveals
that, although levels and slopes of marital
satisfaction do not differ between more and
less wealthy couples, poorer couples report
significantly greater variability in their marital
satisfaction across time (Jackson, Krull, Bradbury, & Karney, 2017). In other words, lower
income couples experience their relationships
as more turbulent than affluent couples, whose
greater resources presumably buffer them from
stressful events and crises (cf. Henry, Sheffield
Morris, & Harrist, 2015).
To the extent that income has direct associations with constructs central to influential
models of successful marriage, such as mental
health, stress, marital interaction, and trajectories of marital satisfaction, then the associations
among these constructs are likely to vary across
levels of income as well. During the past decade,
analyses of diverse samples that directly compare patterns of associations among more or
less affluent couples confirm this prediction. For
example, analyses of survey data from Florida,
Texas, California, and New York reveal that
stress and mental health account for significantly
more variance in the relationship satisfaction of
poorer couples than wealthier couples (Maisel
& Karney, 2012). When couples with more
access to resources confront stress or struggle
with mental health problems, they have options
for protecting their relationships (e.g., by paying
for assistance or counseling) that poorer couples
facing the same challenges do not.
Ross, Karney, Nguyen, and Bradbury (2019)
went further, showing that even basic marital
processes considered fundamental to successful marriage can have categorically different
implications for more or less affluent couples.
Their focus was the demand-withdraw pattern
of marital interaction in which one partner, seeking change, makes a request, while the other,
favoring the status quo, deflects or avoids. The
ensuing cycle has been consistently associated
with declines in marital satisfaction in numerous
studies (e.g., Eldridge, Sevier, Jones, Atkins, &
Christensen, 2007) and across multiple cultures
(Christensen, Eldridge, Catta-Preta, Lim, &
Santagata, 2006). Yet the negative implications
of the demand-withdraw pattern rest on the
assumption that, when this pattern arises, the
change at issue is possible. What makes the
pattern so aversive for both sides is the idea that
the partner requesting change can reasonably
expect the other partner to give in and that the
partner resisting change could accede to the
other partner’s request but chooses not to. What
if the requested change is impossible, as it may
be for lower income couples with less control
over their circumstances? A response (withdrawal) that is maladaptive for the middle-class
couples that comprise most of the samples in
research on marital satisfaction may be adaptive
for lower income couples with fewer options
and resources. Indeed, across two longitudinal
studies that included observational assessments
of marital interactions, Ross et al. (2019) found
that, whereas engaging in the demand-withdraw
pattern predicts lower marital satisfaction for
wealthier couples, the same pattern predicts
more stable marital satisfaction for poorer
couples.
Such findings begin to make sense of the
failure of programs guided by research on upper
income couples to improve the outcomes of
the lower income couples to which they were
targeted: The specific challenges and constraints
that confront lower income couples may moderate or negate the impact of interventions
that might be helpful in other circumstances.
Analyses of data from the Building Strong
Families study, an evaluation of interventions designed to encourage marriage among
unmarried lower income parents, support this
perspective. Although the evaluation showed
that the programs had no effects on relationship
quality or rates of transitioning into marriage
(Wood et al., 2014; Wood, McConnell, Moore,
Clarkwest, & Hsueh, 2012), Williamson,
Karney, and Bradbury (2017) reasoned that
programs that included job training and professional education, in addition to relationship
education, might have benefited couples, as
these programs targeted the specific problems
that lower income couples name as obstacles
to marriage (e.g., Edin & Reed, 2005). In fact,
programs that included these elements did have
unique effects, but in the opposite direction:
Men who received professional education were
less likely to transition into marriage. Further
analyses revealed that men receiving additional hours of education from these programs
spent less time at home with their children and
contributed less money to their households,
accounting for their lower marriage rates. Such
unexpected findings highlight the need to understand couples’ experiences—the demands they
are facing, the constraints on their time and
resources, and the particular dynamics that
are adaptive or maladaptive in their specific
context—before attempting to develop policy or
implement interventions to improve their lives.
Income as a Moderator
Twenty-five years ago, the vast majority of
research on marriage had been conducted on
samples composed primarily of middle-class,
college-educated, mostly White couples (Karney & Bradbury, 1995). In the intervening years,
the profile of the typical sample in marital
research has expanded, but samples of convenience continue to dominate, reflecting a
widespread assumption about the dynamics of
marriage: What is true for the narrow slice of
couples that have been studied extensively is
likely to be true for the more diverse couples that
lie outside the sampling frame of most studies.
During the past decade, this assumption has
been questioned by burgeoning lines of research
on Hispanic marriages (e.g., Orengo-Aguayo,
2015), African American marriages (e.g.,
Cutrona, Russell, Burzette, Wesner, & Bryant,
2011; Stanik, McHale, & Crouter, 2013), and
most recently same-sex marriages (e.g., Chen &
van Ours, 2018) to mention only a few dimensions of diversity that the field has explored. To
illustrate the consequences of broader sampling
for deepening our understanding of marriage,
we devote this section to reviewing one dimension of diversity that was examined at length
during the past 10 years: income.
The possibility that marital process may vary
at different levels of income is worth highlighting because, a decade ago, this possibility was
distinctly overlooked. When the federal government launched the Healthy Marriage Initiative
in the early 2000s, the goal of the program
was to promote stronger, more stable relationships among lower income couples (Office of
Family Assistance, 2012). Yet at the time data
on the relationships of lower income couples
were scarce. Nevertheless, the development
and implementation of skills-based relationship
education programs proceeded apace, guided
by the assumption that the conclusions of prior
research on relationship processes among relatively affluent, mostly White couples would
generalize to the lower income, more diverse
communities targeted by the new initiative.
Within the past decade, the results of nationwide, multisite, longitudinal evaluations of
these programs were released, and they were
not encouraging. Despite their great cost and the
sincere efforts of well-intentioned administrators and educators across the country, the impact
of relationship education on the well-being and
stability of lower income couples proved to
be negligible (Lundquist et al., 2014; Wood,
Moore, Clarkwest, & Killewald, 2014). Abandoning the assumption that the foundations
of satisfying and stable marriage are common
across income groups, leading observers called
for research directly examining how basic processes contributing to successful intimacy may
in fact vary among different segments of society
(Johnson, 2012; McNulty, 2016).
Empirical advances
Research heeding this call during the past
decade has revealed numerous ways that
basic marital processes vary across levels of
socioeconomic status. What does not vary
is the value of marriage itself. Although
rates of marriage are substantially lower in
lower income communities than in more
affluent communities, marriage remains
a cherished goal across income groups
(Garrett-Peters & Burton, 2015; Scott, Schelar,
Manlove, & Cui, 2009; Trail & Karney, 2012).
Instead, income groups can be distinguished by
the sorts of challenges couples face in attempting to reach that goal. Lower income couples,
similar to lower income individuals, report
greater mental health problems, higher stress,
and, not surprisingly, more financial strain than
their higher income peers (Maisel & Karney,
2012). When asked directly about challenges
in their marriages, lower income couples are
more likely to identify finances and substance
abuse, rather than communication and household chores, as their most salient sources of
conflict (Jackson et al., 2016; Trail & Karney,
2012). To the extent that the problems of lower
income couples are more severe, their marital
interactions are likely to be more difficult as
well (Williamson, Hanna, Lavner, Bradbury, &
Karney, 2013). Indeed, Cutrona et al. (2003),
drawing on observer ratings of videotaped interactions between spouses, showed that couples
living in more disadvantaged neighborhoods
expressed less warmth with each other than
couples living in higher income neighborhoods.
Do their greater challenges mean that lower
income couples are less satisfied with their
relationships than more affluent couples? In
fact, lower income couples are not less satisfied
with their relationships on average, despite their
higher divorce rates and the more severe difficulties they encounter. Although perceptions of
greater financial strain have been consistently
associated with lower relationship satisfaction
(e.g., Conger & Conger, 2008), household
income and relationship satisfaction are unrelated (Hardie & Lucas, 2010; Maisel & Karney,
2012). Yet poorer couples do experience their
marriages differently than wealthier couples.
Longitudinal research tracking marital satisfaction across the first years of marriage reveals
that, although levels and slopes of marital
satisfaction do not differ between more and
less wealthy couples, poorer couples report
significantly greater variability in their marital
satisfaction across time (Jackson, Krull, Bradbury, & Karney, 2017). In other words, lower
income couples experience their relationships
as more turbulent than affluent couples, whose
greater resources presumably buffer them from
stressful events and crises (cf. Henry, Sheffield
Morris, & Harrist, 2015).
To the extent that income has direct associations with constructs central to influential
models of successful marriage, such as mental
health, stress, marital interaction, and trajectories of marital satisfaction, then the associations
among these constructs are likely to vary across
levels of income as well. During the past decade,
analyses of diverse samples that directly compare patterns of associations among more or
less affluent couples confirm this prediction. For
example, analyses of survey data from Florida,
Texas, California, and New York reveal that
stress and mental health account for significantly
more variance in the relationship satisfaction of
poorer couples than wealthier couples (Maisel
& Karney, 2012). When couples with more
access to resources confront stress or struggle
with mental health problems, they have options
for protecting their relationships (e.g., by paying
for assistance or counseling) that poorer couples
facing the same challenges do not.
Ross, Karney, Nguyen, and Bradbury (2019)
went further, showing that even basic marital
processes considered fundamental to successful marriage can have categorically different
implications for more or less affluent couples.
Their focus was the demand-withdraw pattern
of marital interaction in which one partner, seeking change, makes a request, while the other,
favoring the status quo, deflects or avoids. The
ensuing cycle has been consistently associated
with declines in marital satisfaction in numerous
studies (e.g., Eldridge, Sevier, Jones, Atkins, &
Christensen, 2007) and across multiple cultures
(Christensen, Eldridge, Catta-Preta, Lim, &
Santagata, 2006). Yet the negative implications
of the demand-withdraw pattern rest on the
assumption that, when this pattern arises, the
change at issue is possible. What makes the
pattern so aversive for both sides is the idea that
the partner requesting change can reasonably
expect the other partner to give in and that the
partner resisting change could accede to the
other partner’s request but chooses not to. What
if the requested change is impossible, as it may
be for lower income couples with less control
over their circumstances? A response (withdrawal) that is maladaptive for the middle-class
couples that comprise most of the samples in
research on marital satisfaction may be adaptive
for lower income couples with fewer options
and resources. Indeed, across two longitudinal
studies that included observational assessments
of marital interactions, Ross et al. (2019) found
that, whereas engaging in the demand-withdraw
pattern predicts lower marital satisfaction for
wealthier couples, the same pattern predicts
more stable marital satisfaction for poorer
couples.
Such findings begin to make sense of the
failure of programs guided by research on upper
income couples to improve the outcomes of
the lower income couples to which they were
targeted: The specific challenges and constraints
that confront lower income couples may moderate or negate the impact of interventions
that might be helpful in other circumstances.
Analyses of data from the Building Strong
Families study, an evaluation of interventions designed to encourage marriage among
unmarried lower income parents, support this
perspective. Although the evaluation showed
that the programs had no effects on relationship
quality or rates of transitioning into marriage
(Wood et al., 2014; Wood, McConnell, Moore,
Clarkwest, & Hsueh, 2012), Williamson,
Karney, and Bradbury (2017) reasoned that
programs that included job training and professional education, in addition to relationship
education, might have benefited couples, as
these programs targeted the specific problems
that lower income couples name as obstacles
to marriage (e.g., Edin & Reed, 2005). In fact,
programs that included these elements did have
unique effects, but in the opposite direction:
Men who received professional education were
less likely to transition into marriage. Further
analyses revealed that men receiving additional hours of education from these programs
spent less time at home with their children and
contributed less money to their households,
accounting for their lower marriage rates. Such
unexpected findings highlight the need to understand couples’ experiences—the demands they
are facing, the constraints on their time and
resources, and the particular dynamics that
are adaptive or maladaptive in their specific
context—before attempting to develop policy or
implement interventions to improve their lives.
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