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Marital Quality and Divorce Decisions: How Do Premarital Cohabitation and Nonmarital Childbearing Matter?
Author(s) -
Tach Laura M.,
HalpernMeekin Sarah
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
family relations
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.772
H-Index - 87
eISSN - 1741-3729
pISSN - 0197-6664
DOI - 10.1111/j.1741-3729.2012.00724.x
Subject(s) - cohabitation , quality (philosophy) , psychology , demography , marital status , national longitudinal surveys , social psychology , developmental psychology , demographic economics , population , sociology , economics , political science , philosophy , epistemology , law
This study used the 1979 cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth ( N = 3,481) to test whether the association between marital quality and divorce is moderated by premarital cohabitation or nonmarital childbearing status. Prior research identified lower marital quality as a key explanation for why couples who cohabit or have children before marrying are more likely to divorce than other couples. Using event history and fixed‐effects models, we found that the effect of marital quality on divorce is similar for cohabitors and noncohabitors, with cohabitors more likely to end both high‐ and low‐quality marriages. In contrast, the relationship between marital quality and divorce is weaker for women with nonmarital births; they are less likely than others to dissolve low‐quality marriages. We discuss how commitment norms and self‐efficacy might explain these differences in the association between marital quality and divorce.