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