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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2008. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1984. / Typescript. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 66-70).

Thesis (M.S.)--Brigham Young University. Dept. of Marriage and Family Therapy, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 31-35).

Thesis (M.S. in Management)--Naval Postgraduate School, March 2005. / Thesis Advisor(s): Stephen Mehay. ADA432436. "March 2005" Includes bibliographical references (p. 117-119). Also available online.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2006. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2000. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 294-307). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

This research seeks to explore the development of the Marital Life Course Perspective as a conceptual framework for describing and understanding marital life events and marital transitions. The study’s orientation is guided by the Life Course Perspective (Glen Elder Jr.) as a theoretical framework and draws on Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (Jonathan Smith) and Concept Analysis (Walker & Avant) as methodological approaches. One hundred and thirty (130) academic works that use the term marital life course in their texts constituted a literature-dataset for a Concept Analysis (Walker & Avant, 1988; 2011) that tracked the theoretical development of the Marital Life Course Perspective since 1980 (George, 1980, p. 80). The residents of retirement centres and old age homes in East London and Buffalo City (all older than 65 years of age) were invited to share a retrospective history of their relationship experiences, about their multiple marital life events and the marital transitions that shaped their marital life course. The 16 women who participated in the in-depth interviews had all been previously married more than once and were currently single due to divorce or the death of their husbands. This empirical data was analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) as a guide (Smith, Flowers, & Larkin, 2009). After the analysis and synthesis of both datasets the following proposed operational definition of the Marital Life Course Perspective was constructed: The Marital Life Course Perspective is a conceptual framework for describing and understanding marital life events and marital transitions. As a subset of the Life Course Perspective, the Marital Life Course Perspective seeks to understand all stages of the marital experience within their wider social and cultural contexts, which are shaped by the historical dimension of a cohort’s specific time and geographic location. Marital life events include, but are not limited to, marital status changes. An individual may experience multiple marriage life events throughout their life, each with associated role transitions that vary according to their temporality and the individuals whose lives are linked to the marital experience. Well-being and transition outcomes across the marital life course may be promoted or impeded by an interplay of risk and protective factors, and agency-related capacity or resilience.

Several studies indicate that married persons have higher levels of happiness that persons in other marital categories. In recent years, there has been some debate over whether marriage still involves significant advantages. In 1988, a study by Glenn and Weaver using U.S. national survey data, indicated that there had been a steady decline in the positive relationship between marriage and reported happiness from 1972 through 1986: married females were reporting lower levels of happiness and never-married males were reporting higher levels of happiness. More recent data presented in this thesis indicate that the trends in happiness observed by Glenn and Weaver (1988) have not continued. New data from 1987 through 1996 show an increase in the happiness of both married males and females, and a slight decrease in the happiness of never-married males. Data also indicate that neither life satisfaction, or socioeconomic factors, or cohabitation can explain the relative increase in the happiness of the never-married, compared to the married, observed by Glenn and Weaver (1988) from 1972 through 1986. Contrary to Glenn and Weaver (1988), evidence presented in this thesis suggests that marriage continues to be an important institution: married persons continue to have significantly higher levels of happiness than persons in other marital categories. Further, marriage provides persons with benefits that cannot be obtained from other living arrangements such as cohabitation. / Master of Science

No description available.