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Gender Differences in the Structure of Marital Quality

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Abstract

Marriages consist of shared experiences and interactions between husbands and wives that may lead to different impressions of the quality of the relationship. Few studies, unfortunately, have tested gender differences in the structure of marital quality, and even fewer studies have evaluated whether genetic and environmental influences on marital quality differ across gender. In this study, we evaluated gender differences in the structure of marital quality using independent samples of married male (n = 2406) and married female (n = 2215) participants from the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States who provided ratings on twenty-eight marital quality items encompassing six marital quality constructs. We further explored gender differences in genetic and environmental influences on marital quality constructs in a subsample of 491 pairs of twins. Results suggest partial metric invariance across gender but structural variability in marital quality constructs. Notably, correlations between constructs were stronger in women than men. Results also support gender differences in the genetic and environmental influences on different aspects of marital quality. We discuss that men and women may approach and react to marriage differently as the primary reason why we observed differences in the structure of marital quality.

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Funding

Funding was provided by the National Institute on Aging (US) (Grant Nos. F31AG044047-01A1, T32AG020500), Institut National des Sciences de l'Univers, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR), and National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (US) (Grant No. 1R01HD056354-0).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA

    Christopher R. Beam

  2. Northwestern University, Evanston, USA

    Katherine Marcus

  3. University of Virginia, Charlottesville, USA

    Eric Turkheimer & Robert E. Emery

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  1. Christopher R. Beam
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  2. Katherine Marcus
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  3. Eric Turkheimer
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  4. Robert E. Emery
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Correspondence to Christopher R. Beam.

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Conflict of interest

Christopher R. Beam, Katherine Marcus, Eric Turkheimer, Robert E. Emery declare that they have no competing interests.

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This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of the University of Virginia.

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No experimental animals were used in the study.

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Edited by Stephen Petrill.

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Beam, C.R., Marcus, K., Turkheimer, E. et al. Gender Differences in the Structure of Marital Quality. Behav Genet 48, 209–223 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10519-018-9892-4

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