Husband Employment and Marital Outcomes

4-wave Study of Low-Income and Ethnically Diverse Couples

Presenter: Hannah Brownlee

Co-Presenter(s):
Molly Uribe, Rian Dixon, Teresa Nguyen

Presenter Status: Undergraduate student

Academic Year: 20-21

Semester: Spring

Faculty Mentor: Teresa Nguyen

Department: Psychology

Funding Source/Sponsor: Koret Scholars Program

Screenshot URL: https://drive.google.com/uc?id=1OFzWzvIog6tJ1SPKxitisDsYZIulhmRu

Abstract:
It is well documented that couples in low socioeconomic demographics face vastly disproportionate rates of divorce when compared to couples that are more affluent, so much so that divorce may be close to twice as likely. Additionally, sociologists have long argued that husbands’ underemployment is associated with relationship instability among low-income mothers, yet quantitative tests of this hypothesis have yielded mixed results. Some studies indicate that husband unemployment leads to decreases in marital satisfaction for both partners, while others find no association. The same opposition can also be found in studies that argue husband workload is positively correlated with marital satisfaction with nonparents and is negatively correlated with parents, in spite of other papers arguing that the negative correlation between workload and relationship satisfaction is not moderated by parenthood or gender. Additionally, financial satisfaction has been found to be positively correlated with marital satisfaction and divorce, yet some researchers argue this only occurs when the wife earns no money herself. We test for the possibility that husbands’ underemployment may have differential effects on marital happiness versus thoughts of divorce in a 4-wave longitudinal study of 431 low-income and ethnically diverse couples. Through the use of multilevel modeling, results indicate that although husbands’ underemployment did not predict spouses’ marital unhappiness, husbands’ underemployment did significantly predict both husbands and wives’ thoughts of divorce, even after controlling for family income. Furthermore, husbands’ underemployment was not a predictor of change in marital happiness from baseline for either husbands or wives, yet thoughts of divorce for wives was found to be significantly correlated with underemployment. The findings indicate that marital satisfaction and thoughts of divorce may be distinct relationship outcomes, particularly among low-income couples who may not find “happiness” as the sole goal of marriage. Moreover, these results suggest that future efforts to prevent divorce among low-income couples may benefit from focusing on improving couples’ economic circumstances.