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Economic Factors and Relationship Quality Among Young Couples: Comparing Cohabitation and Marriage
Author(s) -
Halliday Hardie Jessica,
Lucas Amy
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
journal of marriage and family
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.578
H-Index - 159
eISSN - 1741-3737
pISSN - 0022-2445
DOI - 10.1111/j.1741-3737.2010.00755.x
Subject(s) - cohabitation , affection , respondent , national longitudinal surveys , psychology , demographic economics , longitudinal study , quality (philosophy) , human capital , spouse , demography , social psychology , economics , sociology , economic growth , political science , medicine , pathology , anthropology , law , philosophy , epistemology
Are economic resources related to relationship quality among young couples, and to what extent does this vary by relationship type? To answer these questions, we estimated regression models predicting respondent reports of conflict and affection in cohabiting and married partner relationships using the National Longitudinal Study of Youth, 1997 (NLSY97, N = 2,841) and the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health, N = 1,702). We found that economic factors are an important predictor of conflict for both married and cohabiting couples. Affection was particularly responsive to human capital rather than short‐term economic indicators. Economic hardship was associated with more conflict among married and cohabiting couples.