Happily Ever After? Variation in Trajectories of American Marital Quality
Open Access
- Author:
- James, Spencer Lyle
- Graduate Program:
- Sociology
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- June 21, 2012
- Committee Members:
- Paul Richard Amato, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
Valarie Elizabeth King, Committee Member
Alan Booth, Committee Member
David R Johnson, Committee Member
David Eggebeen, Committee Chair/Co-Chair - Keywords:
- marital quality
divorce
race
cohabitation
happiness
communication
conflict
latent class growth analysis
latent growth curve - Abstract:
- Perhaps no subject in the study of the American family has been the subject of more research than marital quality. Because marriage at once serves as the most intimate of all personal relationships and as the basis of the family, perhaps the most fundamental social unit, the health and strength of marriage in the United States is a matter of great concern to policymakers, scholars, and the general public. Recent advances in the scientific study of marriage and marital quality have allowed marital researchers to begin to examine marriage longitudinally, resulting in debate about how marital quality changes over time. This debate has centered largely on two theories. The first perspective, known as the U-shaped Curve, suggests that marital quality takes a curvilinear function as a marriage matures, with high initial marital quality followed by declines and a subsequent uptick at later marital durations. The second, termed Continual Decline, suggests that marital quality deteriorates continually at all marital durations. In this dissertation, I examine the evidence for these two perspectives and suggest that a new conceptualization of the problem is needed: rather than seeking for the way marital quality changes over time, we should seek to examine the ways individuals experience marital change over the life course. To do this, I leverage data and methods that shed light on variation in longitudinal trajectories of marital quality from both the beginning and the end of marriage and for different groups. This monograph begins by empirically examining the possibility that not all individuals experience similar longitudinal changes in marital quality. Results from latent class growth analyses reveal the heterogeneous paths married individuals travel along the marital life course. Confirming prior work on the topic, I find that a single trajectory inadequately represents the marital experiences of individuals in the NLSY79. I find two trajectories of marital happiness and communication and three trajectories of marital conflict. Covariates such as socioeconomic status, past relationship history, family background, work history, psychological functioning, and demographic characteristics are used to examine the extent to which these features distinguish pathways of marital change in marital quality. Next, this monograph looks for evidence of differences in marital quality across major axes of familial and social stratification, such as divorce status, cohabitation experience, and race-ethnicity. Previous work has often compared the overall or average level of marital quality between cohabitors and non-cohabitors, people whose marriages are headed for divorce and people whose marriages are stable for long periods of time, and members of varying race-ethnicities. The analyses employ multigroup latent growth curves to examine trajectories of marital quality by cohabitation experience, divorce status, and race-ethnicity. The multigroup growth curves make it possible to examine changes in marital quality over time in addition to measuring differences in levels of reported marital quality. Third, this monograph addresses a question that has never been examined in prior work: is there variation in trajectories of marital quality prior to divorce? Most work on trajectories of marital quality has begun at the beginning of the marriage and looked forward in time. However, with an event like divorce, it is also possible to begin at the end of the marriage and look backward in time. Results using latent class growth analyses suggest two distinct trajectories for marital happiness and communication and three for conflict. Covariates tapping socioeconomic status, past relationship history, family background, work history, psychological functioning, and demographic characteristics are used to examine the extent to which these characteristics distinguish pathways of change in marital quality prior to divorce. In sum, this dissertation provides a better understanding of the pathways married couples travel along the road to marital bliss or blunder, shedding light on the social processes governing contemporary patterns of marital quality.