Study Kamp Dush et al. (2008): study US 1980
- Public
- Married people, USA, followed 20 years 1980-2000
- Survey name
- US- BRFSS 2005
- Sample
- Respondents
- N = 962
- Non Response
- 53%
- Assessment
- Interview: telephone (CATI)
Correlate
- Authors's Label
- Change in marital happiness over 20 years: Trajectory types
- Our Classification
-
-
- Remarks
- Change marital between T1 in 1980 and T6 in 2000
- Distribution
-
T1 1980: M = 1,64 SD = 0,42
T2 1983:
T3 1987:
T4 1993:
T5 1997:
T6 2000:
Average marital satisfaction follows a slight U-curve over these 20 years, which is most pronounced among respondents who were low in marital satisfaction at baseline - Operationalization
- Change in marital happiness over 20 years asssed using selfreport on 7 questions in each of the 6 waves:
a:
b;
c:
d:
e:
f:
Rated:
0: not too happy
1: pretty happy
2: very happy
Computation: (a+b+c+d+e+f)/2 recoded to 5 step ordinal scale
Change reduced to 3 trajectories
1: Decrease:marital satisfaction was low and went down (21%)
0: Stability
0a: marital satisfaction remained high (38%)
0b: marital satisfaction remaind at a middle level (41%)
Observed Relation with Happiness
- constant high: OR = 3,74 (001)
- constant middle: OR = 1,17 (ns)
- low and declining: OR = 0.23 (001)
OR controled for T1:
- Family sitiation
- age at first marriage
- marital duration
- homogamity in race and education
- parental divorce
- premarital cohabitation
- Education: level of highest
- Economic: log family income
- Gender relations
- husband share of household work
- shared decision making
- values
- religiousness
- traditional gender attitude
- Selective panel attrition
- stable high (vs low) b = +.12 (05)
- stable middele (vs low) b = +.07 (ns)
- low and decline (vs stable) b = -.12 (001)
b control for change in other trajectories
- stable middele (vs low) b = +.10 (ns)
- low and decline (vs stable) b = -.24 (001)
when b additionally controled for:
- Children below age 18
- family income
- use of public assistance
- wife employed full time
- wife extended hours
- husband employed
- Gender relations
- husband share of household work
- shared decision making
- values
- religiousness
- traditional gender attitude
Together, the positive correlation with maintaining a high level of marital satisfaction and the negative correlation with decrease in marital satisfaction denote a positive effect of T1 lifesatisfaction on later marital satisfaction