Research on stepfamily life in the 21st century reveals unexplored variables at every turn. This is important because around half of American adults report close step-relationships and the challenges and demographic and relational differences for different types of stepfamilies remains unexplored. The first of these studies explored data for 879 husbands and wives couples to explore how positivity, negativity, and sexual interest levels differ depending which of the couple, both partners, or neither had previous children. Wives reported higher levels of marital instability and positivity than husbands. Marital instability was linked with one’s own and one’s partners’ negativity, and inversely related to one’s own and one’s partners’ positivity and sexual interest. The marital instability of those with children was related with their partner’s negativity. The second study investigated how the marital stability of different stepfamily configurations is related to difficulties associated with the social and family dimension, the role of the spouse, the role of a parent, and the role of a stepparent. Wives’ scores of marital instability and difficulties being a parent and stepparent were higher than husbands’ across remarriage types. Stepmothers reported the highest levels of parenting and stepparenting strain, especially stepmothers without children of their own. This implies stepfamily challenges can impact family-related stress and marital instability, with the most profound effects found for stepmothers with no biological children of their own. We found that parents with children seem to be sensitive to negativity and sexual interest from their partners as a measure of relationship functioning. Stepmothers experienced higher levels of marital instability and difficulties associated with being a parent and a stepparent and this is especially true for stepmothers who did not have children of their own. These findings suggest couples may benefit from strategies that decrease negativity, increase positivity and sexual interest, and help manage the stresses associated with being a parent and stepparent, especially for stepmothers

Remarriages account for about one third of all marriages in the United States, however the research on remarried couple outcomes is limited, particularly with regard to finances and financial conflict. The family economic stress model theorizes that economic hardship promotes economic strain, which in turn promotes emotional distress and conflict patterns that have negative impacts on relationship satisfaction and relationship stability. This study used secondary cross-sectional dyadic data to conduct an actor-partner interdependence path analysis of 158 remarried couples to examine the direct and indirect effects of each spouse's perception of economic strain on their own marital satisfaction and stability, as well as on their spouse's marital satisfaction and stability, with financial conflict as an intermediary variable. Tests for indirect effects indicated that financial conflict strongly influences the relationship between economic strain and the marital outcomes (i.e., satisfaction and stability); none of the direct paths between economic strain and the marital outcomes were significant when accounting for financial conflict as a mechanism. Results indicated that, in the context of a remarriage, a person's perception of how much they have conflict about finances is a key mechanism that explains the association between that person's perception of economic strain and their marital satisfaction and stability, regardless of household income and marriage length. Clinicians who lack specific training in financial management but work with remarried couples experiencing economic strain and financial conflict may still be able to intervene effectively to improve relationship quality by helping spouses reduce interpersonal conflict. / Master of Science / Remarriages account for about one third of all marriages in the United States, however the research on the satisfaction (overall relationship quality) and stability (propensity for divorce) of remarried couples is limited, particularly with regard to disagreements about their finances (financial conflict). This study analyzed data from 158 remarried couples to examine the possible effects of each spouse's views of their perceived inability to meet their financial demands (economic strain) on their own, as well as their spouse's, marital satisfaction and stability (marital outcomes), with their perceived financial conflict acting as a mediating variable between economic strain and marital outcomes. Results indicated that, in the context of a remarriage, financial conflict strongly influenced the relationship between economic strain and marital outcomes, regardless of household income and marriage length, such that even though there is still a relationship between economic strain and marital outcomes apart from financial conflict, it is weaker than when financial conflict is included. In other words, risk of dissatisfaction and divorce are less about how financially strained a remarried couple perceives they are, and more about how frequently the couple perceives they have conflict about finances. Therefore, the results of this study indicated financial conflict frequency is an important mechanism for understanding how economic strain can influence remarital outcomes for both spouses. Clinicians working with remarried couples to improve their relationships, but lack specific training in financial management, may still be able to intervene effectively around the financial conflict.

Master of Science / School of Family Studies and Human Services / Jared A. Durtschi / Can having more frequent conversations with a romantic partner prior to marriage contribute to better marital outcomes several years into a marriage? Little is known regarding premarital self-disclosure and its association with distal marital outcomes. Data was utilized from 707 newly married couples assessed across the first four years of marriage through three waves of assessment as part of the Marriage Matters Panel Survey of Newlywed Couples (Nock, Sanchez, & Wright, 2008). Structural equation modeling, including common-fate analysis, was used to test self-disclosure prior to marriage and its association with later marital quality of each spouse and the odds of divorce or separation by the first four years into marriage. Couple-level reactivity was tested as a mediator of these associations, while controlling for known covariates. Results indicated that premarital self-disclosure was associated with wives’ higher marital satisfaction and lower odds of divorce or separation three to four years into marriage. This relationship was mediated by reactivity. Clinical implications are discussed for couples prior to marriage, suggesting more frequent conversations about a wider variety of topics between dating couples.

The influence of religiosity in adolescence on several variables that have been shown to be predictors of marital quality and stability was examined using a nationally representative sample of 3,151 youth, aged 13 to 17 years, from the National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR). Religiosity was defined to incorporate multiple characteristics including religious beliefs, attitudes, participation, experiences, and identities. The effect of religious affiliation and religiosity was also examined for seven premarital predictors, which included relationship with parents, ideal age for marriage, right and wrong, academic achievement, sexual behavior, attitude toward cohabitation, and attitude toward divorce. Data were collected through telephone interviews using a random-digit-dial method between 2002 and 2003. Youth were categorized into eight religious groups: Conservative Protestant, Mainline Protestant, Black Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Other Christian, and Not Religious. Research questions were analyzed using ANCOVA, OLS regression, and logistic regression. Results indicated that all three research hypotheses were supported by the data. Specifically, religious affiliation significantly predicted level of religiosity, religiosity was related to each of the seven premarital predictors of marital quality and stability, and religious affiliation acted as a moderator in the relationships between religiosity and the seven premarital predictors. Comparison of the eight religious groups revealed that religiosity has a unique influence on youth in the different groups in relation to these outcome variables. In light of these findings, implications, limitations, and future directions for research are discussed.

This doctoral thesis consists of 4 self-contained chapters, bound together by their focus on household behavior and social interaction: Bargaining over Risk: The Impact of Decision Power on Household Portfolios. This paper provides an analysis of the internal financial decision-making process of households, employing a unique panel of household finances of the entire Swedish population. Exploitation of a source of exogenous variation in sex-specific labor demand reveals that the distribution of decision power among spouses is a driving force behind the aggregation of spouses’ preferences on financial decision making. Peer Effects and Academic Achievement: Regression Discontinuity Approach. The estimation of peer effects in schools has received much attention in recent years but convincing estimates are hard to produce due to self-selection. This paper overcomes this problem by employing a regression discontinuity design where student assignment into high-ability classes constitutes the source of identifying information. Domestic Equality and Marital Stability: Does More Equal Sharing of Childcare affect Divorce Risk? There is an unanimity that divorce wreaks havoc upon families in which it occurs and individuals growing up in a one-parent family are more likely to deal with term economic and social difficulties. Identifying means by which divorces can be reduced is therefore an important task from a public policy perspective and this paper investigates whether more equal sharing of childcare is successful in doing so. Do Classroom Peers Matter in an Early Tracking System? The potential for peers to affect educational achievement of students is central to many important policy debates, for instance on the impacts of ability tracking. Whether tracking affects efficiency and equality of opportunities depends on how peers enter the educational production function and this paper provides estimates of this. / <p>Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögskolan, 2014. Sammanfattning jämte 4 uppsatser</p>

The purpose of this quantitative and qualitative study was to determine retrospectively marital satisfaction and stability following the near-death experience (NDE) of one of the marital partners, focusing on the role of Gottman's Sound Marital House (1999) in the couple's relationship before and after the NDE. The researcher used the Locke-Wallace Marital Adjustment Test (1959), the Weiss-Ceretto Marital Status Inventory (1980), and a modification of Gottman's Shared Meanings Questionnaire (1999). The first group of participants included 26 NDErs. To create as comparable a group as possible, the researcher designed a life-changing event (LCE) group of 26 people who used as their referent the non-NDE-related experience they considered their most life-changing one during their marriage. Sixty-five percent of the marriages in which the NDErs were involved at the time of their NDEs ended in divorce. This number is in contrast to the 19 percent of LCE participants whose marriages ended in divorce. Marital adjustment, marital stability, and meanings in marriage between retrospectively based pre-event and post-event composite scores were statistically significantly different between the NDErs and LCErs. Low effect sizes were identified for each of the instruments except the Weiss-Ceretto Marital Status Inventory, which had a moderate effect size. Strong correlations among the scores were identified. Further analysis of the results indicated strongly that the NDErs were less satisfied in their marriages, their marriages were less stable, and they did not have a strong level of shared meaning in the marriage after the NDE occurred as compared to the LCE participants. This study has serious implications for counselors who may work with NDErs. Findings from this study show that NDErs who were married at the time of their experiences have a strong possibility of experiencing marital problems. Encouraging these couples to seek professional help as soon as possible can provide a forum for them to address the potential numerous changes in their relationship. By having more information about the effects of an NDE on a marriage, counselors will be better prepared to assist those couples who are not well prepared to navigate their way through the aftereffects of the event. Through psychoeducation and the application of counseling approaches, counselors can help their clients address specific issues related to their NDEs.

Satisfaction is one of the most common dependent variables in the research of adult intimate relationships. Research has demonstrated that length of time married and sex of participants influence the characteristics of marriage, yet little research has been done to determine the characteristic changes in relationship satisfaction over time and across sexes. A review of theory and research suggests both the manners and specific items of satisfaction that vary between groups. RELATE data was used to uncover significant differences in the importance of specific items of marital satisfactions between groups based on relationship length, and between husbands and wives.

Paternal depression is an understudied topic and research connecting it to maternal gatekeeping is still in its infancy. Research has found that the marriage relationship can be associated with both depression and maternal gatekeeping. This study focuses on how these three areas are related. A subsample of the CREATE project was used including 216 couples, or 432 married parents. Two separate SEM mediational models were tested to examine father depression as a predictor of maternal gatekeeping, with marital instability as the mediator in one model and partner connectedness as the mediator in the other model. Both parent reports were used for maternal gatekeeping, marital instability, and partner connectedness. According to results, no direct association between father depression and maternal gatekeeping was found. Marital instability did not act as an effective mediator between father depression and maternal gatekeeping. However, mother reports of partner connectedness did have significant indirect effects on father depression and maternal gatekeeping. Implications suggest that therapists and researchers should examine father depression from a more wholistic family perspective. Future research should include longitudinal analyses to better understand the nature of the relationship between father depression and maternal gatekeeping.

The purpose of this study is to use family stress theory to examine the relationship between age at first marriage and marital quality and divorce. Age at marriage continues to increase and the demographics keep changing. Past research suggests that early age at marriage has been a contributing factor to divorce risk. Marital quality outcomes can also give us an idea of how well couples are faring in their marriages. This study employs a sample from a longitudinal, nationally representative investigation (CREATE), which has followed newlywed couples since 2016. The sub-sample for this study comes from wave one and includes 1,811 women and 1,649 men. Using ordinary least squares (OLS) regression, I analyzed sixteen marital stability and quality outcomes and age at first marriage models for men and women separately. Overall, there were only a few, weak, significant relationships between age at marriage and marital stability and quality outcomes, suggesting that age at first may not be a particularly robust indicator of marital success, perhaps because strong norms for the right age to marry have diminished and couples who marry early do so because they want to rather than feeling they have to. Therefore, practitioners can help couples focus on more significant factors than age for marital success.

With the rising age of marriage and previous research failing to address a more detailed look at more descriptive measures of satisfaction, the current study examined the association between age of first marriage and marital stability, satisfaction, sexual satisfaction and frequency, effective communication, conflict, and problem areas. Results from a sample of 470 participants who completed the RELATE Questionnaire indicated that across the board, those who married from ages 20-24 had better marital outcomes than those who delayed marriage until their thirties and beyond. These results fit a possible theory of explanation that when it comes to age of marriage, a "balanced is better" approach may be more beneficial to couples when it comes to successful marriages.