social forces 2000 rogers 731 53 (1)

8/3/2019 Social Forces 2000 Rogers 731 53 (1)

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Have Changes in Gender RelationsAffected Marital Quality?*STACY J. ROGERS, Pennsylvania State UniversityPAUL R. AMATO, Pennsylvania State University

AbstractWe used national data from two samples reflecting different marriage cohorts toexaminelong-term changes ingender relations withinmarriage, long-term changes inmaritalquality, and theassociation between the two. Thefirstmarriage cohort consisted ofindividuals married between 1964 and1980 (N =1,119) and interviewed in 1980,whereas thesecond marriage cohort consisted ofindividuals married between 1981and1997 (N =312) and interviewed in 1997.Compared withtheearlier cohort, themorerecent cohort reported larger contributions to household income amongwives, moreemployment ofwives withpreschool-age children, less traditional gender-role attitudes,a greater share of housework on the part of husbands, less husband influence inmarriage, andgreater wife influence inmarriage. Members of the more recent marriagecohort also reported significantly more marital discord. This difference in discord wasexplained partly bygreater work-family conflict inthemore recent cohort. Other changesingender relations, however, were not related to increases inmarital discord.

Recent decades have brought fundamental changes to gender relations andmarriage.The intersectionof these domains is of interest to scholarsconcernedwith socialchange and the adaptability of marriage as a socialinstitution. Since the 1960s,both womenand men havebecome less traditional in their gender-roleattitudes.For example, women and men in the 1980s weremore likely than in the 1960s toagree that it isappropriate forwives to have theirowncareers, that employed women

'I- This research was supported by Grant 5 R01 AG04146 from the National Institute on Agingand the Pennsylvania State University Population Research Institute, with core support fromthe National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Grant 1 HD282663. Wethank David Johnson and Alan Booth for helpful comments on drafts of this article. Directcorrespondenceto Stacy Rogers, Pennsylvania State University, 211 Oswald Tower, UniversityPark, PA 16802. The University of North Carolina Press Social Forces, December 2000, 79(2):731-753


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732 I Social Forces 79:2, December 2000can be good mothers, and that men should do more housework and child care(Thornton 1989). Changes in gender relations also are evident as the economiclives of men and women increasingly converge. In the late 1990s, women, likemen, demonstrated commitment to employment over the lifecourse - regardlessofmarital or parenthood status - and made important contributions to familyeconomic resources (Spain &Bianchi 1996). And although less dramatic, therehas been some confluence in the home, as men have become more activeparticipants in household work and child care (Coltrane 1996; Robinson &Godbey1997).At the same time, the nature of marriage has changed. Satisfying marital

relationships have beneficial effectson individual well-being, and the majority ofindividuals continue to marry (Nock 1998; Ross 1995; Umberson et al. 1996).However, increases in age at first marriage, the current high divorce rate, andthe declining remarriage rate suggest that marriage is a more voluntary and lesspermanent part of adult life now than it was in the recent past (U.S. Bureau ofthe Census 1992).Changes in public attitudes also reflecta decline in the centralityof marriage, involving more positive evaluations of permanent singlehood, morenegativeattitudes toward marriage, and a greater emphasis on the restrictivenatureofmarital bonds (Thornton 1989).Furthermore, research provides some evidencethat marital quality has declined in recent decades (Glenn 1991;Rogers&Amato1997).In the research presented here, we are interested in the manner in whichchanges in gender relations in marriage may have affected marital quality. Haverecent changes in husbands' and wives' roles helped to strengthen marriage byincreasing equity and flexibility? Or have changes in spouses' behavior furtherundermined an already fragile arrangement by increasingnormative ambiguity andstrain?Toaddress these questions,we use a national longitudinal study of marriageto compare indicators of gender relations within marriage and levels ofmaritalquality for two marriage cohorts: those married between 1964 and 1980 (andassessed in 1980) and those married between 1981 and 1997 (and assessed in1997).

Changing Gender Relations in MarriageIn recent decades, gender relations within marriage have changed in importantways. A number of theoretical perspectives, such as life course theory (Elder1994) and ecological systems theory (Doherty, Kouneski & Erickson 1998),emphasize that structural characteristics of communities and societies can affectthe quality of people's intimate relationships. According to these perspectives,social-historical change has the potential to create new opportunities as well asundermine necessary supports for intimate relationships. For example, changes


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GenderRelationsand Marital Quality / 733in gender relations within marriage that have occurred since the 1960smay havecontributed to improvements in marital quality by increasing the extent to whichmarital relationships are flexible, egalitarian, and responsive to changing individualpreferences. Alternatively, these changes may have eroded marital quality byelevating normative ambiguity within marriage, increasing the importance ofnegotiation, and raising the potential for conflict. Important changes have occurredin several gendered domains of marriage, including spouses' economic roles,work-family conflict (especially for wives), the division of household labor,perceptions of fairness regarding the household division of labor, gender-roleattitudes, and the balance of marital power. We discuss each of these in turn.SPOUSES' ECONOMIC ROLES

In recent decades, husbands and wives have become more similar in their rates oflabor-force participation. In the early 1960s,approximately 30% ofwivesand 90%of husbands were in the labor force; by 1994those figureswere approximately 600/0and 78%, respectively (Spain & Bianchi 1996;U.S.Bureau of the Census 1998). Inaddition, regardless of marital status, women are increasingly likely to remainemployed through the prime childbearing and child-rearing years, a pattern thatwas relatively rare as recently as 1980 (Moen 1992; Spain & Bianchi 1996; U.S.Bureau ofLabor Statistics 1998).Husbands' and wives' financial contributions also have converged. Women,especially the well educated, have benefited from the burgeoning service sectorof the economy. In contrast, men, especially those with relatively little education,have experienced deteriorating work opportunities due to declines in themanufacturing, mining, and construction sectors (Farley 1996;Hernandez 1993;Zill & Nord 1994). Also, after a period of stagnation, the gender gap in incomecontinued to close during the 1980s. As a result, married women's economiccontributions during the 1980s substantially decreased the likelihood that theirfamilies would be in poverty (Hernandez 1993). On average, working wivescontributed 30-400/0 of their family's income by 1990 (Spain & Bianchi 1996).

This trend toward greater sharing of economic roles may have increasedmarital quality by enhancing equity in marriage (Blumstein & Schwartz 1983;Scanzoni 1972, 1978). It also may have improved marital quality by increasingthe level of economic resources available to the family, which may alleviateeconomic hardship (Voydanoff 1990).In contrast, marital quality may be loweredby a decline in husbands' economic resources, which has been linked to maritaldiscord and more problematic family relationships (Conger et al. 1990;Hernandez1993;Voydanoff 1990). An increase in wives' economic contributions also mayincreasemarital discord to the extent that it challengesconventional power relationsbased on husbands' prerogative as the primary breadwinner (Hood 1983;Thompson &Walker 1989).


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734 I SocialForces 79:2, December 2000WORK-FAMILY CONFLICT

Alongwith married women's labor-forceparticipation, the potential forwork-familyconflicthas grown in recent decades,particularly amongwiveswith young children.A role strain perspective draws attention to the potential difficultyof performingmultiple roles that make demands on individuals' resources, especiallytheir time(Glass&Fujimoto 1994;Goode 1960).Married mothers of preschool children maybe particularly vulnerable to role strain if theywork full-time, given the conflictingtime demands of work and family roles. In 1970 approximately 100/0 ofmarriedmothers with preschool children were employed full-time, year round, with 440/0having some employment. By1990, these figures had increased to 28% and 68%,respectively (Spain & Bianchi 1996).

Numerous observershave documented the potential for the conflictingdemandsof work and family to create stress for mothers - stress that often spills overand affects the quality ofmarital relations (Booth et al. 1984; Hochschild 1997;Spain & Bianchi 1996; Voydanoff 1988). Time shortages reported by marriedmothers affect marital quality by decreasing couples' time together (Kingston &Nock 1987), increasing wives' feelings of role overload and role conflict(Voydanoff 1988), and raising wives' awareness of inequity in the householddivision of labor (Booth et al. 1984).DIVISION OF HOUSEHOLD LABOR

Research on the household division of labor draws attention to two domainsthrough which household work may influence marital quality: spouses' actualcontributions and spouses' perceptions of equity in the divisionof labor (Hawkins,Marshall & Meiners 1995; John, Shelton & Luschen 1995; Thompson 1991).Withregard to actual household work, research suggests a convergence as men's timein household work has increased and women's time has decreased, regardlessof employment status. For example, among adults aged 18 to 64, approximately40 hours per week were spent by women in household work and child care in1965, compared to 11 hours spent by men. By 1985 these figures had shifted to30 hours for women and 15 hours for men (Robinson & Godbey 1997).Nevertheless, research consistently documents a tendency for husbands toperform less housework and child care than wives, even when wives areemployed full-time (Hochschild 1989; Robinson & Godbey 1997; Thompson &Walker 1989).Perceptions of fairness in the household division of labor also have becomeincreasingly salient for marriage. The distributive justice perspective suggeststhatspouses' satisfaction with the household division of labor depends not only ontask completion but also on the subjective meanings attached to household workand employment (John, Shelton & Luschen 1995; Thompson 1991). Research


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GenderRelationsand Marital Quality / 735indicates that perceptions of unfairness in the division of household laborcontribute to clashes in many marriages (Hochschild 1989;Pina & Bengtson 1993),especiallywhen wiveshold nontraditional gender attitudes (Greenstein 1996).Onthe other hand, it is possible that husbands' increased contributions to householdwork, and the positive subjective meanings attached to sharing such work, havecontributed to increases in marital quality over time - especially among wives.This possibility is especially likely when viewed within a context of increases inwives' employment, greater potential for work-family conflict, and growingsupport for egalitarian gender roles.GENDER-RoLE ATTITUDES AND MARITAL POWER

Both women and men have become less traditional in their gender-role attitudessince the late 1960s (Thornton 1989). Traditional gender-role attitudes stress thedistinct nature of the husband-breadwinner and the wife-homemaker-mother roles,their interdependence, and the differential power relations implied by thesespecialized roles. In contrast, nontraditional roles emphasize shared capacities forboth economic productivity and nurturance, aswellas egalitarian power relations.Previous research suggests that increasing support for nontraditional gender-roleattitudes and greater support for egalitarian power relations may have positive aswell as negative consequences for marital quality.Several scholars suggest that this shift in attitudes (combined with greatersharing ofwork and family roles) should contribute to improvements in maritalquality at the aggregate level (Blumstein & Schwartz 1983; Coltrane 1996;Scanzoni 1972, 1978). Scanzoni (1972) has argued that wives' access toemployment and economic resources, and the resulting increase in equity inspouses' marital power, is an essential foundation for positive marital quality. Heemphasizes the importance ofmarital negotiation and conflict as productive forcesthat, when conducted between equal partners, increase marital satisfaction andstabilityby enhancing the flexibilityof the marital relationship. In addition, to theextent that nontraditional gender-role attitudes and more equitable powerarrangements are associated with greater sharing of economic and domestic roles,marriages not only may be more satisfying (Coltrane 1996)but also may be moreadaptable to an economic climate that has changed dramatically in recent decades(Danziger & Gottschalk 1995). Oppenheimer (1997) notes that marriage basedon a sharing model, in which both spouses can perform economic and householdwork competently, is more flexible and therefore better equipped to respond tothe loss or incapacitation of a partner than a marriage based on strict genderspecialization. This is a particularly salient issue at a time when many husbands'economic fortunes have declined. Spouses in dual-earner familieshave fared betterfinancially in recent years (Levy 1995) and may have enjoyed greater maritalhappiness as a result.


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736 I SocialForces 79:2, December 2000The growingsupport for egalitarianpower relations and nontraditional gender

role attitudes in recent decades also may have negatively affectedmarital qualitybecause it challenges the traditional gender-based division of labor and powerthat continues to underpin many marriages (Thompson &Walker1989).Thornton(1989)has indicated that wivesmay more readily embrace nontraditional attitudesthan husbands, increasing the likelihood of conflict as new norms are negotiated.In a longitudinal study, Amato and Booth (1995) found that wiveswho adoptedless traditional (and more egalitarian) attitudes became less satisfied with theirmarriages and reported greater discord. Presumably, wives who adoptnontraditional viewsmust negotiate work and family responsibilities with theirhusbands that previous generations took for granted, thus raising the potentialfor discord in the relationship.

Contributions of the Present StudyPrevious conceptual perspectivesand research findings regarding the linksbetweengender relations and marital qualityare equivocal. Although some changesin genderrelations may have improved marital quality,other changes may have underminedit. The net result of these changes on marriage is unclear. Furthermore, mostprevious research has involved analyses based on a single cross-sectional dataset. There are virtually no studies of long-term changes in gender relations andtheir impact on marriage.

A small number of studies suggest that marital quality has declined in the lastfew decades. Glenn (1991) reported a gradual decline from 1973 to 1988 in thepercentage of people in the General Social Survey who reported that theirmarriages were "very happy:' This decline occurred despite the tendency fordivorce to remove the most unhappy couples from the pool ofmarried individuals.In another analysis based on the General Social Survey,Glenn (1998) found thatthe apparent increase in marital quality in the later years of marriage - oftenobserved in studies based on a single cross-section - appeared to be due to adecline in averagemarital happiness across successive marriage cohorts. Similarly,Rogers and Amato (1997) found shifts in several dimensions of marital qualityacross two groups representing marriages initiated in the 1970s and the 1980s.Although identical in terms of age at the time of data collection and duration ofmarriage, members of the more recent cohort reported less marital interaction,more marital conflict, and more problems in their marriages.

In the research presented here, we extend previous work on this topic byinvestigating the associations between changes in gender relations and changesin marital quality. We focus on three central issues. First, how have genderrelations in marriage changed in recent decades? Based on our review of priorliterature, we formulate the following hypothesis:


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Gender Relationsand Marital Quality /737Hypothesis 1: In more recent marriage cohorts, compared with earliermarriage cohorts, (1) wivesearn more income, (2) there is greater potentialfor work-family conflict, (3) gender-role attitudes are less traditional,(4) husbands do a greater share of housework, (5) wives are more likelyto feel that the household division of labor is unfair, and (6) wives havegreater decision-making power.

Second,we are concerned with how marital quality has changed in recent decades.Prior work (albeit limited) leads to the following hypothesis:

Hypothesis 2: Individuals in more recent marriage cohorts report lowermarital quality than individuals in earlier marriage cohorts.

And third, can changes in gender relations account for the presumed decline inmarital quality in recent decades? Specifically, we hypothesize the following:

Hypothesis 3: Differences in marital quality between cohorts decline ordisappear when controls are added for changes in gender relations.

Of course, to the extent that changes in gender relations have benefited marriage(or have yielded mixed effects),we would not expect changes in gender relationsto account for declines in marital quality.

MethodsTHE SAMPLE

Our analysis is based on the Marital Instability over the LifeCourse Study (Boothet al. 1993). Telephone interviewers used a clustered random-digit-dialingprocedure to locate a national sample of2,033 married persons (not couples) 55years of age and under in 1980.Of targeted telephone numbers, 17% could not bereached after ten callbacks. Of those individuals contacted, 780/0 provided completeinterviews. This response rate compares favorablywith other studiesthat use randomdigit dialing (Booth & Johnson 1985).The 1980sample, when compared with U.S.census data, was representative of the U.S. population with respect to age, race,household size, presence of children, homeownership, and region. Of the originalrespondents, we were able to reinterview 1,592 (780/0) in 1983, 1,341 (66%) in1988, 1,189 (580/0) in 1992, and 1,047 (52%) in 1997. Due to sample attrition,subsequentwaveswere slightly lessrepresentativewith respect to AfricanAmericans,Hispanics, younger respondents, renters, and those without a college education.

In 1992 and 1997we also interviewed a random sample of adult offspring (19yearsof ageor older) of the original respondents. Wewere able to obtain interviewswith 471 adult offspring in 1992. In 1997we carried out a second interview with424 of these adult offspring.Wealso carried out interviewswith an additional 220adult offspring who had reached the age of 19 between 1992 and 1997. This


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738 / Social Forces 79:2, December 2000represents an overall response rate of 800/0 across all eligible offspring in 1997.Note that only one offspring per family was interviewed.

In the present research,we constructed two samples: 1,119married individualsfrom the original sample who were between 19 and 35 years of age in 1980(mean age=29.0), and 312 married individuals from the offspring sample whowere between 19 and 35 years of age in 1997 (mean age = 29.6). The two groupsrepresent distinct marriage cohorts: Those in the earlier group were marriedbetween 1964 and 1980, whereas those in the more recent group were marriedbetween 1981 and 1997. The two cohort groups were coded 0 (early marriagecohort) and 1 (recent marriage cohort) in analyses. For the early cohort group,allvariablesweremeasured in 1980;for the more recent cohort group, allvariableswere measured in 1997. Individuals with missing data on marital quality wereexcluded from these samples.We constructed the samples so that no individuals in the first marriage cohortwere parents of individuals in the second marriage cohort. Some of the offspring(N =151) had parents eligible to be in the first cohort. To determine if omittingthese parents biased our results, we carried out all analyses twice, once excludingand once including these 151 parents. All the results were virtually the same.Consequently, to avoid problems with dependencies in the data, we present theresults of analyses based on the sample that excludes the 151 parents.VARIABLES

Gender RelationsThe wife's proportion of income was calculated by dividing the wife's income bythe sum of the husband's and wife's income. Work-family demands were assessedwith an index based on wives' employment and the number of preschool-agechildren in the household. The index was scored in the followingmanner: 1=wifenot employed; 2 =wife employed part-time, one preschool child; 3 =wifeemployed part-time, two or more preschool children; 4 = wifeemployed full-time,one preschool child; and 5=wife employed full-time, two or more preschoolchildren. Gender-role attitudes were measured with a seven-item scale. Peopleresponded to items such as"Awoman'smost important task in lifeshould be takingcare of her children" and "If jobs are scarce,a woman whose husband can supporther ought not to have a job" (l =disagree strongly, 4 = agree strongly). Itemswererecoded in the direction of nontraditional attitudes, and the mean response servedas the scale score (a = .67).

The husband's contribution to household work was assessed with a singleitem askingwhether the husband usually does none (0), less than half (.25), abouthalf (.5), more than half (.75), or all (1) of the household work, including cleaning,doing laundry, and cooking. Perceptions of an unfair household division of laborwere measured with two items. The first dealt with husbands (1 =household


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GenderRelationsand Marital Quality I 739division of labor is unfair to the husband, 0 =not unfair), and the second dealtwith wives (1 =household division of labor is unfair to the wife, 0 =not unfair).Marital power was based on a single item: "Overall, considering all the kinds ofdecisions you two make, does your spouse more often have the final word ordo you?" Responses were coded into two categories: (1) husband has the finalword, and (2) wife has the final word. These two categories were contrastedwith the omitted category, in which equal influence was reported. Althoughresearchers disagree about how marital power should be measured (Mizan 1994),"final word" measures continue to be one of the most commonly used methodsof assessing this construct.Marital QualityWe used five scales to measure marital quality. Marital happiness was an elevenitem scale that assessed the extent to which the respondent was happy withdifferent aspects of the relationship. For example, respondents were asked, "Howhappy are you with the amount of love and affection you receive from yourspouse?" ( l = not very happy, 2 = pretty happy, 3 = very happy). This scalereflected a subjective evaluation of the marriage by the respondent (a = .87).We also included four scales that measured dyadic characteristics of the

marriage, that is, people's perceptions of their own and their spouse's behaviorin the relationship. (We assume that these measures contained both an objectiveand a subjective component.) The marital-interaction scale (a = .67) assessedthefrequency with which couples engaged in five activities together: eating the mainmeal, shopping, visiting friends, working on projects around the house, and goingout for recreation (1 = never,2 = occasionally,3 = usually,4 = almost always).Themarital-conflict scaleassessedthe amount and severityof conflict between spouses.Items dealt with the frequency of disagreements in general, the frequency of seriousquarrels in the preceding two months, and whether spouses were so angry that theyslapped, hit, punched, kicked, or threw things at one another during the previousthree years (a = .45). For example, respondents were asked, "How often do youdisagree with your spouse? Would you say (1) never, (2) rarely, (3) sometimes,(4) often, or (5) veryoften?"The marital-problems scaleinvolvedreports offourteenproblems in the relationship (someone - either the respondent or the spouse gets angry easily,is jealous, ismoody, is not horne enough, is domineering, etc.),and the sum of the "yes" responses served as the measure of relationship problems(a = .72). For example, respondents were asked, "Have you had a problem in yourmarriage because one ofyou getsangry easily?" (0 =no, 1=yes).Divorcepronenessis the propensity to divorce and includes both a cognitive component (thinkingthe marriage is in trouble) and actions (talking to friends or spouse about thepossibility of divorce). The scale consisted of twelve items, with half referring tothe respondent and half referring to the spouse. For example, respondents were


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740 I Social Forces 79:2,December 2000asked, "Have you ever talkedwith family members) friends) clergy) counselors) orsocial workers about problems in your marriage?" and "As far as you know) hasyour spouse talkedwith relatives) friends) or a counselor about problems either ofyou were havingwith the marriage?" (0=no) 1=yes). High scores indicated greaterinstability (alpha = .92). To facilitate analysis) all scaleswere standardized to havemeans of 0 and standard deviations of 1.Control VariablesWe controlled for several individual and relationship characteristics that mighthave been related to marital quality and that differed across groups. These includedcurrent age) duration ofmarriage in years) years of education) gender (0 =male)1=female) race (0 =white) 1 =nonwhite) marriage order (0 =first marriage)1=second or third marriage) and age at first marriage.AttritionTo assess the possible effect of panel attrition) we relied on a procedure firstdescribed by Heckman (1979). We identified cases in the 1980 sample that hada child eligible to be interviewed in 1997 (N = 1,438). Among this group) weused a probit analysis to predict whether a completed offspring interview wasobtained in 1997 (1 = yes) 0 =no). Five 1980 variables were found to be goodpredictors: the respondent was male) was under age 26)was nonwhite) had lessthan a college education) and lived in rented accommodations. (Indicators ofparents' marital quality in 1980were not associated with obtaining an interview.)We used the equation based on these five variables to calculate lambda - a valuefor each case that reflected the probability of yielding an offspring interview in1997.

ResultsSAMPLE CHARACTERISTICS

Table 1 shows descriptive statistics for all variables. The first four columns showthe means (and standard deviations) for husbands and wives in the earlier andmore recent marriage cohorts. The last three columns show probability values(derived from regression models) that test for cohort differences) genderdifferences) and cohort-gender interactions with respect to the variables in eachrow.

We turn first to the control variables. With regard to current age) the ages ofhusbands were similar in the two marriage cohorts) butwives tended to be youngerin the earlier cohort. (This trend was reflected in a marginally significant cohort-


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Gender Relations and Marital Quality /741gender interaction in the last column.) Compared with the more recent cohort,husbands and wives in the earlier cohort were married slightly longer, on average.With regard to education, the more recent cohort was better educated, althoughthis difference was especially pronounced for wives. The more recent cohortcontained fewer nonwhites and a lower proportion of second or higher-ordermarriages. This latter difference may be related to the fact that members of theearlier cohort married at earlier ages, thus allowing more time to divorce andremarry prior to being interviewed. Finally, age at first marriage was higher inthe more recent cohort, especially for women. In most respects, these differencesare consistent with national trends. For example, between 1980and the mid-1990s,the educational levels of young adults increased, especially among women(U.S.Bureau of the Census 1998).Similarly,age at first marriage increased duringthis period (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1998).Moreover, the lower proportion ofnonwhites in 1997 is consistent with the fact that marriage (and remarriage) rateshave declinedmore quickly among AfricanAmericans than among whites (Cherlin1992). Some of these differences, however, also may reflect differential sampleattrition - a point to which we return later.DIFFERENCES BETWEEN SAMPLES IN GENDER RELATIONS

The gender relations variables differed between the two marriage cohorts inexpected ways. Consistent with national trends (Spain & Bianchi 1996), wives'proportion of total family income increased significantly between 1980and 1997.Scores on the work-family demands index also increased significantly between1980 and 1997, suggesting that members of the more recent marriage cohortwere more susceptible to conflicting work-family demands than were membersof the earlier marriage cohort. Thornton (1989), using national data, found thatgender-role attitudes have become less traditional in recent decades - a trendalso reflected in our data. Furthermore, Table 1 shows that the increase was nearlyidentical for husbands and wives.To the extent that nontraditional attitudes createuncertainty about gender roles within marriage, this change has the potential tocreate tension between wives and husbands.

Husbands' contributions to household labor were significantly higher in themore recent cohort than in the earlier cohort - another finding consistent withprevious work (Pleck 1997;Robinson & Godbey 1997). Although wives reportedlower contributions by their husbands than husbands claimed, increases acrosscohorts were similar for wives and husbands. An interesting result was thatperceptions that the household division oflabor is unfair to husbands were higheramong women than among men, although the difference between cohorts wasnot significant.Similarly, perceptions that the household division of labor is unfairto wiveswere higher among women than men, although the difference betweencohorts was not significant. These results suggest that wives are more likely than


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742/ Social Forces 79:2, December 2000TABLE 1: Comparison of Two Marriage Cohorts on All Variables Used in

the AnalysisHusbands" Wivesa Probability

Married Married Married Married CohortX1964-80 1981-97 1964-80 1981-97 Cohort Gender Gender

Control VariablesCurrentage 29.86 29.72 28.38 29.43 .12 .00 .06

(5.22) (4.39) (5.00) (4.54)Yearsmarried 6.29 5.51 6.50 5.92 .02 .29 .73

(4.62) (4.37) (4.48) (4.54)Years ofeducation 14.11 14.63 13.30 14.77 .00 .00 .00

(2.63) (2.11) (2.38) (2.37)Nonwhite .12 .05 .15 .09 .03 .08 .99Remarriage .12 .08 .15 .09 .01 .14 .74Age firstmarried 22.43 23.93 20.63 23.06 .00 .00 .03

(3.20) (3.36) (3.20) (3.80)Gender RelationsWife's percent .20 .33 .25 .39 .00 .00 .60ofincome (.21) (.19) (.24) (.21)

Work-family 1.96 2.53 2.03 2.69 .00 .37 .59demands (1.25) (l.45) (1.19) (1.68)Nontraditional 2.54 2.63 2.54 2.62 .04 .81 .68genderattitudes (.55) (.47) (.57) (.50)Husband'sshare .31 .43 .23 .32 .00 .00 .70of housework (.16) (.16) (.19) (.17)Division of laborUnfairto husbands .02 .05 .06 .06 .20 .01 .18Unfairto wives .20 .18 .28 .32 .64 .00 .35MaritalpowerHusbandhasmore .46 .35 .34 .18 .00 .00 .15Wifehasmore .08 .16 .16 .34 .00 .00 .78

husbands to acknowledge unfairness in general. With respect to marital power,husbands were more likely than wives to report greater husband influence, andthis was true in both cohorts. Similarly,wives were.more likely than husbandsto report greater wife influence, and this was true in both cohorts. Nevertheless,both husbands and wives acknowledged a decline in husband influence and anincrease in wife influence between 1980 and 1997. Although not directly shownin the table (but obtainable through simple subtraction) about half of therespondents, regardless of cohort or gender, reported equal decision-makinginfluence. These results indicate that in spiteof a decline in people's willingnessto nominate husbands as the more influential partner, egalitarian marriages were


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Gender Relationsand Marital Quality I 743TABLE 1: Comparison of Two Marriage Cohorts on All Variables Used in

the Analysis (Continued)Husbands" Wivesa Probability

Married Married Married Married Cohortx1964-80 1981-97 1964-80 1981-97 Cohort Gender Gender

Marital QualityHappiness .10 .09 -.09 .04 .29 .00 .28

(.92) (.99) (1.06) (.95)Interaction .08 -.07 .03 -.26 .00 .14 .28

(.94) (.98) (1.02) (1.03)Conflict -.07 .07 -.09 .18 .01 .16 .73

(.99) (1.02) (1.03) (1.00)Problems -.09 .00 .05 .06 .46 .02 .51

(.97) (.96) (1.05) (.89)Divorceproneness -.07 -.07 .04 .10 .95 .08 .63

(.97) (1.04) (1.05) (.89)Note: Standarddeviations arenot shownfordichotomousvariables. Themaximumsamplesizeis1)119for the 1964-80 marriagecohort (671 wives and 448 husbands) and 312 for the 1981-97marriagecohort (159wives and 153husbands).Samplesizes varyslightlyduetomissingdataonsome variables. Probabilityvaluesare based on regression analyses with cohort) gender)andcohort x genderaspredictors.Allsignificance testsare two-tailed.a Thetop number isthemean)and thenumber in parenthesesisthestandarddeviation.

no more common in the 1997 sample than in the 1980 sample, at least asmeasuredby this variable. In general) the gender relations reported by members of our twomarriage cohorts are consistent with the broader social changes described earlier.DIFFERENCES BETWEEN SAMPLES IN MARITAL QUALITYTable1alsoshows reports of marital quality in the two marriage cohorts. Consistentwith the notion of declines in marital quality (Glenn 1991;Rogers & Amato 1997),members of the more recent cohort reported significantly lower levels ofmaritalinteraction and significantly higher levelsofmarital conflict than did members ofthe earlier cohort. In addition, wives reported significantly less marital happinessand significantly more marital problems than did husbands.

To further investigate cohort differences in marital quality, we compared thetwo groups after controlling for the demographic variables in Table 1. Table 2shows the results of ordinary least-squares regression analyses with each of themarital-quality variables serving as a dependent variable. In addition to the controlvariables, the equations included lambda - the correction for attenuation.Column 1 reveals that the cohort difference in marital happiness was small andnot significant, even after adjusting for the control variables. Marital interaction


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744/ SocialForces 79:2, December 2000TABLE 2: Marriage Cohort Differences in Five Dimensions of Marital

QualityDivorce

Predictors Happiness Interaction Conflict Problems PronenessMarriage cohort

(recent=1) .02 -.27*** .20** .15* .1OtCurrentage -.01 -.01 .00 .00 .02Yearsmarried -.02 -.03 -.01 .00 .01Years ofeducation .01 .01 .01 -.02 .00Female -.16** -.07 .06 .10 .11*Nonwhite -.16* -.02 .08 .19* .14Remarriage -.04 -.05 -.01 .22 -.01Age firstmarried .00 .01 -.02 -.01 -.02Lambda .11 .07 -.10 -.24 -.12Constant .14 .19 .24 .72** -.12R2 .03*** .03*** .01* .02** .02**Note: Coefficients areunstandardizedOLS regression coefficients. Allsignificance testsare two-tailed.N=1,431.t P =.15 * P < .05 ** P < .01 *** P < .001(column 2), however,was significantlylower in the more recent cohort, and maritalconflict (column 3) and reports ofmarital problems (column 4) were significantlyhigher. And although the coefficient for divorce proneness was not significant, itapproached significance. Overall, the trends for interaction, conflict, problems, anddivorce proneness were consistent in suggesting that marital quality was lower inthe recent cohort than in the earlier cohort. Table 2 also shows that the lambdacoefficient was not significant for any outcome, suggesting that variables thatpredicted staying in the sample were not associated with marital quality.

Because the cohort differences were in the same direction for interaction,conflict, problems, and divorce proneness (but not for happiness), and becausethese four dimensions all reflected behavioral aspects of the marriage (as opposedto a subjective evaluation), we decided to combine these four variables into amore parsimonious outcome. We used the Analysis of Moment Structures(AMOS)program (Arbuckle 1997)with maximum likelihood estimation to createa single latent variable. The measurement model for the latent variable, whichwe refer to as marital discord, is presented in Figure 1. For ease of interpretation,standardized coefficients are presented. Figure 1 indicates that the measurementmodel fit the data well, as reflected in the nonsignificant chi-square statistic andthe high goodness-of-fit indices.

We used a multigroup method to estimate the measurement model separatelyfor individuals in the earlier and more recent marriage cohorts. In one model,


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Gender Relations and Marital Quality / 745FIGURE 1

Chi-square =.50df= 2p =.78GFI = 1.00 -.39AFGI = .99 Interaction

Conflict

Problems

Divorceproneness

paths between the observed indicators and the latent marital discord variable wereconstrained to be the same in both groups; in a second model, the paths wereallowed to differ. The difference in chi-square values between the two modelswas not significant (1.75, df=3, P> .1), indicating that the same measurementmodel was appropriate for members of both groups. We carried out a similarprocedure for wives and husbands. Once again, the difference in chi-square valueswas not significant (1.46, df = 3, P> .1), suggesting that the model wasappropriate for both genders.

Table 3 reports the results of structural equation models dealing with marriagecohort differences in marital discord. To facilitate the interpretation of results,the latent discord variable was set to have a mean of 0 and a standard deviationof 1.This procedure means that the coefficients in the table can be interpreted aseffect sizes, or adjusted differences between groups expressed in standard deviationunits. Because the pattern ofmissing data in the control variables appeared to berandom, we used AMOS to provide full information, maximum-likelihoodestimates in the presence ofmissing data (Arbuckle 1997). The amount ofmissingdata was small for all variables, with the largest being 2% for income.


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746/ SocialForces 79:2, December 2000TABLE 3: Gender Relations and Cohort Differences in Marital Discord

Model Model Model Model1 2 3 4Cohortgroup(1= recent) .18* .18* .14+ .18*Wife's percentof income .09Work-family demands .07*Nontraditional genderattitudes .14*Husband'sshareofhouseworkDivision oflabor

Unfairto husbandsUnfair to wives

MaritalpowerHusbandhasmoreinfluenceWifehasmore influence

R2 .02* .02* .03** .03*

Modell shows the difference in discord with the two marriage groups equatedon all demographic characteristics (that is, with all demographic controls in theequation). The difference between 1980 and 1997 was significant, with maritaldiscord being .18 of a standard deviation higher in the more recently marriedgroup. Because AMOS does not calculate fit indices when missing data exist,we ran a comparable model using a listwise deletion ofmissing cases.The adjustedgoodness-of-fit (AGFI) index for model I, based on listwise deletion, was .97,indicating a very good fit to the data. Parameter estimates were very similar (andall significant effects were replicated) regardless of whether we included orexcluded cases with some missing data. We also checked to see whether theincrease in marital discord across marriage cohorts was stronger for wives orhusbands (not shown). Although the difference was somewhat larger for wivesthan husbands, the interaction between gender and cohort was not significant(p> .1). The apparent increase in marital discord held for both genders.

Although the group difference in discord was statistically significant, the R2values for the equations were low. This finding might suggest that the groupdifference, although significant, was trivial. However, as Glenn and Shelton (1983)have pointed out, explained variance is not a good indicator of importance,especiallywhen working with skeweddichotomous predictors, such as ourmarriagecohort variable. A better indicator is the effect size, or the adjusted differencebetween groups expressed in standard deviation units. Table 3 reveals an effectsize of .18. Glenn and Shelton (1983) argue that an effect size of one-tenth of astandard deviation is large enough to be considered nontrivial in survey research.By this criterion, this difference is large enough to be substantively important.


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Gender Relations andMaritalQuality /747TABLE 3: Gender Relations and Cohort Differences in Marital Discord

(Continued)

-.51 **.76***.80***

.30***

.46***.03* .17*** .06***

Model5

Cohortgroup (1 = recent) .23**Wife's percentof incomeWork-family demandsNontraditionalgenderattitudesHusband'sshareof houseworkDivision of laborUnfairtohusbandsUnfairto wives

MaritalpowerHusbandhasmore influenceWifehasmore influence

Model6.17*

Model7.18*

Model8.15*-.15.05*.15**-.13

.73***

.76***

.28***

.36***

.22***Note: Thedependentvariable, maritaldiscord,isa latentvariable estimatedwithAMOS.Coefficientsareunstandardizedmaximum-likelihood estimates.Allmodelscontrolfor age, yearsmarried,education,gender,race,marriageorder, and ageat firstmarriage. Allsignificance testsaretwo-tailed. N = 1,431.+ P < .10 * P < .05 ** P < .01 *** P < .001

GENDER RELATIONS AND MARITAL DISCORD

In the next phase of our analyses, we investigated whether differences in genderrelations could explain the differences in marital discord between the 1980 and1997 samples. Beginning with model 2 in Table 3, we entered the explanatoryvariables into structural equation models (one at a time) to see how they affectedthe original association between the marriage cohort and marital discord. Pathsbetween observed indicators and the latent variable were constrained to be thesame in each analysis to ensure that the latent variable did not change acrossmodels. Model 2 indicates that the wife's proportion of income was positivelybut not significantly associated with discord ( = .09). Furthermore, adding thisvariable to the model did not affect the cohort coefficient, which remained at= .18. Consequently, we see no evidence that the change in the share of incomeearned by wives accounted for the cohort difference in marital discord.In model 3, higher scores on the index of work-family demands (based on the

combination ofwives' employment and preschool-age children) were associatedwith higher levelsof marital discord. Each step on the five-point index increasedmarital discord by .07 of a standard deviation. Furthermore, the cohort coefficientdropped from .18 to .14 (model 1 versus model 3), indicating that work-familydemands accounted for 22% of the cohort difference in marital discord. The


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748/ Social Forces 79:2, December 2000remaining cohort difference was no longer fully significant, although it continuedto be marginally significant (t = 1.87,P< .07).

Model 4 reveals that the measure of nontraditional gender-role attitudes wasassociatedwith greater marital discord. Each step on the four-point scale increasedmarital discord by about one-seventh ofa standard deviation. Adding this variableto the equation, however, did not affect the cohort coefficient, indicating thatincreasing support for nontraditional gender roles did not explain the differencein marital discord between the two groups.

The husband's proportion of housework (modelS) was negatively associatedwith discord. The coefficient suggests that the difference between doing none(.00) and about half (.50) of the housework was associated with a decline ofabout one-fourth of a standard deviation in marital discord. It is interesting that,because more recently married couples reported greater husband participation inhousework, controlling for this variable increased the cohort gap in discord from.18 to .23. This finding suggests that if husbands had not increased their shareofhousework in recent years, the increase in marital discord across cohorts wouldhave been even greater.

Model 6 indicates that respondents who believed that the household divisionoflabor was unfair to husbands scored .76 of a standard deviation higher on thediscord variable than did other respondents. Similarly, those who believed thatthe household division of labor was unfair to wives scored .80 of a standarddeviation higher on the discord variable. The addition of these variables to theequation, however, had little effect on the difference between cohorts.

Both indicators ofmarital power (husband has more influence and wife hasmore influence) in model 7were associated with higher levelsofmarital discord.It appears that inequality favoringeither partner was linked to lower marital quality.Recall, however, that the earlier cohort reported greater husband influence,whereas the more recent cohort group reported greater wife influence.Presumably,these two deviations from equality canceled one another, resulting in little changein the cohort coefficient between model 1 and model 7.

Model 8 reveals that the full set of explanatory variables, consideredsimultaneously, accounted for 22% of the variance in marital discord. In this finalmodel, work-family demands, nontraditional attitudes, perceptions ofunfairnessin the division of labor, and inequalities in power all were associated positivelyand significantly with marital discord. It is clear from previous models, however,that increased work-family demands was the only variable that helped to explainthe higher levelofmarital discord in the more recent marriage cohort. These resultssuggest that most of the changes in gender relations between the two samples didnot contribute significantly to the higher levelof discord experienced by the morerecent marriage cohort.


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Gender Relations and Marital Quality I 749DiscussionThe goals of this study were to investigate changes in gender relations withinmarriage, changes in marital quality, and the relationship between these twodomains. Our first question involved how gender relations in marriages havechanged during the last two decades. We answered this question by comparingdimensions of marital quality in a relatively recent marriage cohort (marriedbetween 1981 and 1997 and assessed in 1997) and an earlier marriage cohort(married between 1964 and 1980 and assessedin 1980). In the more recent cohort,wives contributed a greater proportion of family income, wives faced greaterwork-family demands, husbands and wivesheld less traditional gender attitudes,husbands contributed a greater proportion ofhousework, and individuals reportedlesshusband influence and greater wife influence. These differences are consistentwith prior studies of gender and marriage (Coltrane 1996;Hochschild 1997; Pleck1997). The only variable that did not change in the anticipated manner involvedpeople's perceptions of unfairness in the household division of labor, which didnot appear to increase between 1980 and 1997. This result is surprising, giventhe increasing levelof scholarly interest in perceptions of fairness and its relationto marital quality (John, Shelton& Luschen 1995; Thompson 1991).

Our next question dealt with how the two samples differed in marital quality.The two groups were approximately similar with respect to age and duration ofmarriage at the time of data collection, and we statisticallyheld constant a varietyof other demographic characteristics. Consequently, members of the earlier cohortand the more recent cohort were at the same stage of life and at similar points intheir marriages. In spite of this comparability, however, members of the morerecent cohort reported higher levels of marital discord, and this increase wasapparent for husbands as well as wives. These findings are consistent with earlieranalyses suggesting an erosion in the quality of contemporary marriages (Glenn1991, 1998; Rogers & Amato 1997). It is interesting that the two groups did notdiffer in reports ofmarital happiness. This finding suggests that although maritaldiscord appears to have increased,people's subjectiveevaluations of their marriagesdid not change.

Our next question asked whether changes in gender relations in marriage canaccount for the increase in marital discord between cohorts. We found that maritaldiscord was higher when wives had to deal with work-family demands, whenspouses held nontraditional gender attitudes, when the household division oflaborwas perceived to be unequal, when husbands did relatively little family work, andwhen marital power was unequal. (Wives' proportion of family income was notrelated to marital discord.) Nevertheless, even though gender relations wereconsistent predictors of marital quality, changes in gender relations, in general,did not account for the increasein marital discord during this period. Only increasesin work-family demands based on wives' level of employment and the number


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750 I Social Forces 79:2, December 2000ofpreschool-age children in the household explained some of the gap in maritaldiscord between our early and recent marriage cohorts.

Unfortunately,wewere unable to disentangle the specific work-familydemandsthat may be affecting marriage. Time shortages are one source of work-familyconflict, and previous research indicates that time shortages reported by marriedmothers affect marital quality by decreasing couples' time together (Kingston &Nock 1987),increasingwives'feelings of role overload and role conflict (Voydanoff1988),and raising wives' awareness of inequity in the household division of labor(Booth et al. 1984). In addition, research emphasizes that the consequences ofperforming multiple roles are moderated not only by role demands but also bythe capacities individuals bring to their roles (Wethington & Kessler 1989) and thesubjectivemeanings that individuals attach to them (Simon 1995).It is importantfor future research to clarifywhich of these factors may be contributing to declinesin marital quality.

Some limitations to this research require comment. Our 1980 sample wasreasonably representative of the larger national population of married couples inthat year (ages 19-35). Our 1997 sample, however, was derived from parents inthe 1980 sample, and a good deal of panel attrition occurred between 1980 and1997. Consequently, we cannot guarantee that our 1997 marriage sample wasrepresentative of all married individuals (ages 19-35) in that year. Nevertheless,ourmore recent marriage cohort differed from the earlier marriage cohort in waysconsistent with national trends. In particular, our more recent cohort was bettereducated (especially wives), married at later ages, reported a higher proportionof incomes from wives, experienced more work-family demands, held lesstraditional gender-role attitudes, claimed greater housework by husbands, reportedless husband influence, and reported more wife influence - all differences thatare consistent with findings in other studies. These considerations suggest thatcomparing the two samples was a reasonable research strategy. Nevertheless,our findings would be strengthened by analyses with two samples that are eachrepresentative of all married individuals in their cohorts.

With respect to selection, the divorce rate increased substantially during the1960sand 1970sand then stabilized.The typical person in the early cohort marriedin 1976, well into the period when divorce rates were rising. Consequently, therisk of divorce (especially early in marriage) probably was not much higher inthe earlier cohort than in the more recent cohort (in which the typical personwasmarried in 1991). For this reason, the effects of selection due to divorce in thepresent study probably are modest. However, to the extent that the more recentcohort experienced a higher rate of divorce than the earlier cohort, then wewouldexpect people in the more recent cohort to report higher marital quality, asproblematic marriages should have been terminated and removed from the poolof married individuals at a faster rate. This tendency would work against thetrend reported here, that is, for recent marriages to report poorer marital quality


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Gender Relations andMarital Quality I 751than earliermarriages. Our analysis, therefore,mayhaveslightly underestimatedthe increase in discord across cohorts.In conclusion, our findings provideevidence that genderrelations in marriage

have changed in recent decades. Theyalso provide support for the notion thatmaritalrelationships havechanged in recentyears - becomingmore problematicand difficult tomaintain,yetstill relatively happyand highly valued. It is surprisingthat thesetwotrendshave onlya limitedintersection. Relatively little ofthe increaseinmaritaldiscord canbeexplained by changes in gender relations withinmarriage,and only increases in work-family demands havecontributed to the increases indiscord across these two cohorts. This latter finding is particularly important,given the substantial number of marriages in which work and family roles aresharedby the spouses. Nevertheless, the study presentedhere suggests that shiftsin genderrelationshavenot undermined the qualityof contemporarymarriages.ReferencesAmato, Paul R, and Alan Booth. 1995. "Changes in Gender Role Attitudes and Perceived

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