Limited partners
When She Brings Home the Job Status: Wives’ Job Status, Status Leakage, and Marital Instability
Alyson Byrne & Julian Barling
Organization Science, March-April 2017, Pages 177-192
Abstract:
Women are increasingly represented in high status organizational positions. While the advancement of women into high status roles offers them many organizational benefits, the spillover and crossover effects of these high status positions on their marital relationships remain under explored. In this study, we focus on potential costs to the marital relationship when women in high status positions hold higher job status roles than their husbands. First, we examine the spillover effects of wives’ job status relative to their husbands’ on marital instability. We suggest that this relationship is indirect and mediated by negative thoughts and feelings toward their partners’ lower job status (which we refer to as “wives’ status leakage”) and decreased relationship satisfaction. Second, we investigate plausible crossover effects on husbands’ marital instability when wives have higher job status and suggest that husbands’ spousal support can moderate the indirect relationship between wives’ job status and wives’ marital instability. We explored these questions on 209 women in positions of high job status, a sample of 53 matched husband–wife dyads, and 92 of the wives who also completed questionnaires three years later. Full cross-sectional and longitudinal support emerged for the indirect spillover effects of wives’ job status on marital instability of wives, and direct crossover effects on husbands’ marital instability. In addition, the indirect relationship between wives’ job status on marital instability of wives was moderated by instrumental support. Theoretical contributions, practical implications, and future research suggestions are discussed.
In Defense of Commitment: The Curative Power of Violated Expectations
Sandra Murray et al.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
A new model of commitment defense in romantic relationships is proposed. It assumes that relationships afford a central resource for affirming meaning and purpose in the world. Consequently, violating expectations about the world outside the relationship can precipitate commitment defense inside the relationship. A meta-analysis of 5 experiments, 2 follow-up correlational studies, and a longitudinal study of the transition to first parenthood supported the model. Experimentally violating conventional expectations about the world (e.g., “hard work pays off”) motivated less satisfied people to defensively affirm their commitment. Similarly, when becoming a parent naturalistically violated culturally conditioned gendered expectations about the division of household labor, less satisfied new mothers and fathers defensively affirmed their commitment from pre-to-post baby. The findings suggest that violating expected associations in the world outside the relationship motivates vulnerable people to set relationship their relationship right, thereby affirming expected associations in the relationship in the face of an unexpected world.
Adult Pornography and Violence Against Women in the Heartland: Results From a Rural Southeast Ohio Study
Walter DeKeseredy & Amanda Hall-Sanchez
Violence Against Women, June 2017, Pages 830-849
Abstract:
Many rural parts of the United States are now “pornified.” There is growing quantitative evidence revealing that rural women are at higher risk of being victimized by intimate violence than their urban and suburban counterparts. In-depth interviews with 55 rural southeast Ohio women who wanted to leave, were trying to leave, or were in the process of leaving, or who have left their male marital/cohabiting partners reveal that pornography is a major component of the problem of rural woman abuse. The main objective of this article is twofold: (a) to present the results of our qualitative study, and (b) to suggest future directions in theoretical and empirical work.
Marital Biography and Mothers’ Wealth
Adrianne Frech, Matthew Painter & Jonathan Vespa
Journal of Family and Economic Issues, June 2017, Pages 279–292
Abstract:
We used over 20 years of data to estimate differences in mothers’ wealth across marital biography, following a marital first birth. Our study is the first to account for the selection of mothers into divorce or remarriage when estimating the role that marital history plays in wealth accumulation. Mothers who remained stably married to the biological father of their firstborn child reported greater wealth in their forties than mothers who divorced and did not remarry. Those who married at younger ages, women of color, and women from lower-income families were less likely to remain stably married. Net of selection, mothers who remained remarried had the same wealth as continuously married mothers. Thus the characteristics that predispose mothers to divorce, and not divorce per se, are linked to lower wealth. Once these selection effects were accounted for, we concluded that divorce was not necessarily detrimental to mothers’ economic security, a new finding that contradicts past studies.
Knot yet: Minimum marriage age law, marriage delay, and earnings
Chunbei Wang & Le Wang
Journal of Population Economics, July 2017, Pages 771–804
Abstract:
Despite the historical highs for age at first marriage, little is known about the causal relationship between marriage delay and wages, and more importantly, the mechanisms driving such relationship. We attempt to fill the void. Building on an identification strategy proposed in Dahl (Demography 47:689–718, 2010), we first establish the causal wage effects of marriage delay. We then propose ways to distinguish among competing theories and hypotheses, as well as the channels through which marriage delay affects wages. Specifically, we take advantage of their different implications for causal relationship, across gender and sub-populations. We reach two conclusions. First, we find a positive causal impact of marriage delay on wages, with a larger effect for women. Comparison of IV and OLS estimates suggests that the observed relationship between marriage delay and wages is attributed to both selection in late marriages and true causal effects. Second, we find strong evidence that the positive, causal effects are almost exclusively through increased education for both men and women.
The Impact of Narrative Expressive Writing on Heart Rate, Heart Rate Variability, and Blood Pressure Following Marital Separation
Kyle Bourassa et al.
Psychosomatic Medicine, forthcoming
Objective: Divorce is a common stressor that is associated with increased risk for poor long-term physical and mental health. Using an experimental design, the current study examined the impact of expressive writing (EW) on average heart rate (HR), heart rate variability (HRV), and blood pressure (BP) 7.5 months later.
Methods: Participants from a community sample of recently separated adults (N=109) were assigned to one of three conditions, traditional EW, narrative EW, or a control writing condition, and assessed three times over an average of 7.5 months. Each study visit included 27 minutes of physiological assessment; the primary outcomes at each assessment were mean-level HR, HRV, BP scores averaged across six different tasks.
Results: Participants in the traditional EW condition did not significantly differ from control participants in their later HR, HRV, or BP. However, relative to control participants, those in the narrative EW condition had significantly lower HR, B = -3.38, 95% CI [-5.48, -1.23], p = .002, and higher HRV 7.5 months later, B = 0.34, 95% CI [0.15, 0.53], p < .001. These effects were moderately sized, Cohen’s ds = -0.61 and 0.60, respectively, and durable across all task conditions when analyzed in independent models. The writing condition groups did not differ in their later BP.
Consequences of Partner Incarceration for Women's Employment
Angela Bruns
Journal of Marriage and Family, forthcoming
Abstract:
Research has documented the limited opportunities men have to earn income while in prison and the barriers to securing employment and decent wages upon release. However, little research has considered the relationship between men's incarceration and the employment of the women in their lives. Economic theory suggests that family members of incarcerated individuals may attempt to smooth income fluctuation resulting from incarceration by increasing their labor supply. This study used data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 3,780) to investigate how men's incarceration is associated with the number of hours their female partners work as well as variation in this association. Results showed that, on average, women's hours of work were not significantly impacted by the incarceration of their partners. However, there was a positive relationship between partner incarceration and employment among more advantaged groups of women (e.g., married women, White women).
Oxytocin and vulnerable romantic relationships
Nicholas Grebe
Hormones and Behavior, April 2017, Pages 64–74
Abstract:
Oxytocin (OT) has been implicated in the formation and maintenance of various social relationships, including human romantic relationships. Competing models predict, alternatively, positive or negative associations between naturally-occurring OT levels and romantic relationship quality. Empirical tests of these models have been equivocal. We propose a novel hypothesis (‘Identify and Invest’) that frames OT as an allocator of psychological investment toward valued, vulnerable relationships, and test this proposal in two studies. In one sample of 75 couples, and a second sample of 148 romantically involved individuals, we assess facets of relationships predicting changes in OT across a thought-writing task regarding one's partner. In both studies, participants' OT change across the task corresponded positively with multiple dimensions of high relationship involvement. However, increases in participants' OT also corresponded to their partners reporting lower relationship involvement. OT increases, then, reflected discrepancies between assessments of self and partner relationship involvement. These findings are robust in a combined analysis of both studies, and do not significantly differ between samples. Collectively, our findings support the ‘Identify and Invest’ hypothesis in romantic couples, and we argue for its relevance across other types of social bonds.