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Marriage Matters But How Much? Marital Centrality Among Young Adults a
b
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Brian J. Willoughby , Scott S. Hall & Saige Goff a
Brigham Young University
b
Ball State University Published online: 12 Dec 2014.
Click for updates To cite this article: Brian J. Willoughby, Scott S. Hall & Saige Goff (2015) Marriage Matters But How Much? Marital Centrality Among Young Adults, The Journal of Psychology: Interdisciplinary and Applied, 149:8, 796-817, DOI: 10.1080/00223980.2014.979128 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00223980.2014.979128
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The Journal of Psychology, 2015, 149(8), 796–817 C 2015 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC Copyright doi: 10.1080/00223980.2014.979128
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Marriage Matters But How Much? Marital Centrality Among Young Adults BRIAN J. WILLOUGHBY Brigham Young University SCOTT S. HALL Ball State University SAIGE GOFF Brigham Young University
ABSTRACT. Marriage, once a gateway to adulthood, is no longer as widely considered a requirement for achieving adult status. With declining marriage rates and delayed marital transitions, some have wondered whether current young adults have rejected the traditional notion of marriage. Utilizing a sample of 571 young adults, the present study explored how marital centrality (the expected importance to be placed on the marital role relative to other adult roles) functioned as a unique and previously unexplored marital belief among young adults. Results suggested that marriage remains an important role for many young adults. On average, young adults expected that marriage would be more important to their life than parenting, careers, or leisure activities. Marital centrality profiles were found to significantly differ based on both gender and religiosity. Marital centrality was also associated with various outcomes including binge-drinking and sexual activity. Specifically, the more central marriage was expected to be, the less young adults engaged in risk-taking or sexual behaviors. Keywords: marriage, roles, belief, attitude, young adult, emerging adult
MARRIAGE AS BOTH A SOCIETAL INSTITUTION and a relationship status has undergone dramatic shifts in the last several decades. Once the common and normative “capstone” of adult relationship progression, marriage has slowly faded to the background in favor of career development and educational trajectories for many adults in western and other industrialized countries. Marriage rates have Address correspondence to Brian J. Willoughby, School of Family Life, Brigham Young University, 2081 JFSB, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602, USA; [email protected] (e-mail). Color versions of one or more of the figures in the article can be found online at www.tandfonline.com/ vjrl. 796
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steadily declined over the last fifty years in the United States (Copen, Daniels, Vespa, & Mosher, 2012) while nonmarital births are at record highs (Ventura, 2009). This shift away from marital child-bearing has weakened the connection between marriage and one of the elements that made it seem so essential in previous generations, the rearing and socialization of children. These changes have been accompanied by parallel shifts in divorce rates (Kreider & Ellis, 2011) and premarital cohabitation (Goodwin, Mosher, & Chandra, 2010; Kennedy & Bumpass, 2008), both of which remain high with the latter continuing to rise (Seltzer, 2004). These demographic shifts have led to what Cherlin (2004) described as the deinstitutionalization of marriage where normative beliefs and trajectories are eroding and pathways through or without marriage are becoming more pervasive. With these changes in the marital institution, adolescents and young adults are left to navigate a relational landscape where all roads may no longer end at the same outcome. While many young adults may still end up marrying, a growing proportion will enter their 30’s single (Kreider & Ellis, 2011) and trajectories through the 20’s are generally becoming more diverse (Horowitz, & Bromnick, 2007). Despite these changes in behavior and norms, a steady and large proportion of young adults and adolescents still value marriage (Carroll et al., 2007; B. Wilcox, 2010) and expect to marry at some point in the future (Scott, Schelar, Manlove, & Cui, 2009; Thornton & Young-DeMarco, 2001; W. B. Wilcox & Marquardt, 2011). Indeed, these attitudinal findings suggest that marriage is still very much a goal for the vast majority of young adults, despite decreases in actual marital transitions. One possible explanation for this apparent contradiction is that while marriage remains important for many, other roles and life goals may be increasingly given a higher priority in the minds of young adults. Goals centered on work, leisure activities, or even parenting separated from marriage may diminish the relative priority that some young adults place on marriage. In the current study we sought to address this question by exploring whether young adults continue to place a high priority on their future marital role as a spouse relative to other priorities, operationalized in the current study as marital centrality. In line with previous marital belief findings (Carroll et al., 2007; Willoughby, Hall, & Luczak, 2013), we also explored how marital centrality was associated with a range of behavioral and risky outcomes among young adults and how beliefs regarding marital centrality compared to other commonly assessed beliefs regarding marriage. Marital Beliefs Among Young Adults Although marriage is now increasingly unlikely to occur for most young adults until well into their late 20’s or early 30’s (Copen et al., 2012), scholars have argued that marital beliefs are still relevant variables of interest in understanding young adult development and trajectories through the time period. Carroll and colleagues (2007; 2009) proposed a Marital Horizon Theory of young adulthood
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where it was argued that the diversity and complexity seen within young adulthood, viewed through the lens of family development theory, can be partially explained by exploring how young adults view, conceptualize, and prioritize future marital relationships. The premise of Marital Horizon Theory is that the beliefs young adults hold regarding marriage are likely setting young adults on trajectories through the developmental period that will impact risk-taking decisions (Clark, Poulin, & Kohler, 2009; Willoughby & Dworkin, 2009) and later union formation (Clarkberg, Stolzenberg, & Waite, 1995; Thornton, Axinn, & Xie, 2008). In the last several years, several studies have confirmed these theoretical assumptions, showing that how young adults conceptualize future marriages is associated with a range of behaviors (Gassanov, Nicholson, & Koch-Turner, 2008; Mahay & Lewin, 2007; Willoughby & Dworkin, 2009; Carlson, 2012). Several studies have found particularly strong ties between the marital beliefs young adults hold regarding the importance and ideal timing of marriage, binge drinking (Carroll et al., 2007), and sexual behavior (Clark et al., 2009; Willoughby & Dworkin; Willoughby & Carroll, 2010). These studies have generally found that young adults who place a high priority on marriage and desire to marry sooner engage in fewer risky behaviors but may engage in more sexual behavior. For example, Clark and colleagues (2009) found that a desire to marry sooner was associated with increased engagement in sexual behaviors. These findings have generally been explained through the process of anticipatory socialization (Burr, Day, & Bahr, 1993) where young adults who plan to marry soon begin to alter their behavior in anticipation of an impending marital transition. Building off of and extending Marital Horizon Theory, Marital Paradigm Theory (Willoughby et al., 2013) was developed to further understand how marital beliefs impact the daily lives of young adults. Marital Paradigm Theory argues that one’s generalized beliefs regarding marriage influence specific intentions to engage in behavior ranging from dating choices to educational decisions. Thus, one’s marital beliefs serve as important markers of behavioral decision-making and should be explored as possible catalysts for healthy and unhealthy behavior across developmental periods. Willoughby and colleagues noted that Carroll’s previous work largely centered on beliefs regarding getting married and omitted parallel beliefs regarding being married. According to Willoughby and colleagues, beliefs about getting married encompass beliefs about oneself or others regarding the process of marital courtship and situating marital transitions around other goals in one’s life. Conversely, beliefs regarding being married are beliefs one holds regarding the importance of one’s marital role after marital transitions have occurred or regarding expectations of what marriage and marital life will be like. While acknowledging that most research on marital beliefs has focused on beliefs regarding getting married and few previous studies have undertaken an exploration focused on beliefs regarding being married, it was noted that young adults may hold beliefs regarding being married in the future that may have just as
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much impact on their daily behavior as beliefs regarding getting married. Marital Paradigm Theory suggested that three broad dimensions of marital beliefs regarding being married exist: beliefs regarding marital centrality, marital permanence and marital process. Key to the present study, marital centrality was defined as beliefs regarding the importance of one’s future or current marital role and the priority that role would take relative to other adult roles and activities.
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Marital Centrality Willoughby et al. (2013) noted that beliefs regarding the centrality of the marital role remains perhaps the most understudied type of marital belief in the current literature. They acknowledged that “little research exists exploring how individuals conceptualize the relative importance the marital relationship will hold for them after marriage” (p. 15). Despite this lack of scholarship, some studies do suggest that the centrality of marriage compared to other life roles and obligations may hold important insights into young adult behavior. Commitment to one’s marriage has long been an important marker and predictor of relational success and well-being (Owen, Rhoades, Stanley, & Markman, 2011; Stanley & Markman, 1993) and most definitions of commitment include the idea that commitment to one’s partner involves the prioritization of that relationship above other obligations. Specifically, dedication commitment (Owen et al.) is often partially conceptualized as putting a priority on one’s relationship. In this way, the vast scholarship on commitment suggests that beliefs regarding the relative centrality of one’s marriage is an important indicator of relational well-being once one enters into marital relationships. But what about beliefs regarding marital centrality earlier in the life course? As most young adults still expect to marry, scholars have noted that young adults appear to hold perceptions and expectations regarding future marital roles even before they make marital transitions. Whitehead and Popenoe (2001) noted that many young adults expect their future marriage to be a “full-time” job and expected to devote personal resources into such a relationship. Likewise, Kerpelman and Schvaneveldt (1999) found that both men and women tend to place a high importance on being married as a future identity and tended to value it equally. Peake and Harris (2002) noted that many young people are actively planning for balancing marriage, career, and other tasks before such transitions occur. Attempting to explore this preparation, Willoughby (2010) argued that the relative importance of marriage may be a more useful variable of study among young adults than traditional measures of marital importance. While general measures of marital importance are prone to low variability given that most individuals value marriage, the relative importance of marriage or a future spousal role may provide more measureable and useful differences within a given population. Using a large sample of high school students, Willoughby showed that adolescents’ beliefs regarding the centrality of marriage relative to both friendships and careers shifted
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as these adolescents approached young adulthood. While in early adolescence, participants on average believed they would value friendships and careers more than marriage. By the time the same sample was approaching high school graduation, future marital roles were believed to be more important than friendships and virtually of equal importance to future careers. Unfortunately, this study of adolescents is currently the only study to explore beliefs regarding the relative centrality of marriage compared other adult roles and obligations among adolescents. No data currently exists on similar beliefs among young adults and no study to date has explored whether such beliefs regarding marital centrality are associated with behavioral decisions in ways similar to beliefs regarding marital salience (i.e., importance) or timing (see Carroll et al., 2007; Willoughby & Dworkin, 2009). Overview of Present Study The goal of the present study was to assess an element of Marital Paradigm Theory, marital centrality, which has previously not been empirically studied during young adulthood. Specifically, we investigated how central marriage is expected to be in the future lives of unmarried young adults, how marital centrality may be associated with current risky behaviors, and how beliefs regarding marital centrality might relate to other previously researched beliefs regarding the marital relationship. Given that marital beliefs have proven to be important markers of healthy young adult development (Carroll et al., 2007), such findings may be important for both scholars interested in healthy young adult development and practitioners who desire to understand the correlates of risky behavior during young adulthood. Additionally, we believe that such an investigation may provide insight into why young adults generally still place importance on marriage but collectively are delaying marital transitions (Arnett, 2000). We undertook this investigation by first utilizing a unique measurement that tasked young adults within the sample with estimating the relative importance of four future roles and obligations (marriage, parenting, careers, and leisure activities). Our first task was to explore the following general research question: Research Question 1: How much importance do never married young adults expect to place on marriage compared to parenting, careers, and leisure activities in the future?
We also focused on how aspects of marital centrality might differ by both gender and religiosity. Marital belief scholarship has long shown that males and females differ in how they conceptualize and view marriage (Carroll et al., 2007; W. B. Wilcox & Dew, 2010). Males have traditionally valued marriage less than females (Blakemore, Lawton, & Vartanian, 2005) and report a later ideal age of marriage than women (Carroll et al., 2007). Additionally, highly religious
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individuals tend to give marriage a special and sacred meaning in their lives (Dollahite, Hawkins, & Parr, 2012). Due to these findings, in the present study we explored how gender and religiosity might change patterns of marital centrality and tested the following two hypotheses:
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Hypothesis 1: Women will place a higher importance on their future marital role than men. Hypothesis 2: More religious young adults will place more importance on their future marital role than less religious young adults.
We finally sought to explore how marital centrality beliefs were related to other marital beliefs (marital salience and marital timing). One of the motivations for such an inquiry was to explore whether marital centrality beliefs have heavy conceptual and/or measurement overlap compared to other similar beliefs regarding marriage. We explored this within the context of other commonly utilized marital belief measurement to predict current risky behaviors and other beliefs and attitudes among young adults. Several studies (Gassanov et al., 2008; Mahay & Lewin, 2007; Willoughby & Dworkin, 2009; Carlson, 2012) have shown links between marital beliefs and such outcomes and we sought to extend these findings by replicating them while also examining whether marital centrality provided a unique predictive ability above and beyond measures of marital beliefs utilized in previous studies. In the current study we assessed associations between marital beliefs and several key markers of behavior, focusing primarily on alcohol use (measured by both binge drinking and general alcohol use) and sexual activity. These two outcomes were selected for two reasons. First, previous research has shown associations between marital beliefs and both alcohol use (Carroll et al., 2007) and sexual behavior (Clark et al., 2009; Simons, Burt, & Tambling, 2012; Willoughby & Dworkin, 2009; Willoughby & Carroll, 2010). Second, both binge drinking (Delucchi, Matzger, & Weisner, 2008) and sexual activity (Kaestle & Halpern, 2007) tend to peak during young adulthood before declining throughout the twenties. That many young adults engage in high levels of both behaviors suggests that both are key indicators of well-being during this developmental period. We utilized several markers of sexual behavior in the current student including sexual intercourse, noncoital sexual engagement, and use of pornography. Use of pornography in particular has been shown to be a common sexual practice among young adults and one that is linked to mental health outcomes (Carroll et al., 2008; Willoughby, Carroll, Nelson, & Padilla-Walker, 2014). In particular, Willoughby and colleagues (2014) recently found that female use of pornography during young adulthood was associated with negative mental health outcomes while male pornography use among young adults was associated with a pattern of risky behaviors. Carroll and colleagues (2008) also noted that use of pornography was
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significantly associated with marital timing beliefs among both young adult men and women. In addition to these two key indicators, Carroll and colleagues (2007) also documented strong correlations between marital beliefs and beliefs young adults hold regarding cohabitation, parenting, and other aspects of family formation. Due to these findings we also explored associations between marital centrality and other family formation beliefs. Drawing on the Marital Paradigm Theory (Willoughby et al., 2013), which suggests that marital centrality is a unique dimension of marital beliefs, and other studies, which have suggested that marital beliefs of generalized importance and timing are important correlates of young adult development in terms of both risky behavior and beliefs and attitudes toward other behavioral decisions, we examined the following three research hypotheses: Hypothesis 3: More belief in the centrality of marriage will be significantly associated with less binge drinking and sexual activity among young adults. Hypothesis 4: More belief in the centrality of marriage will be significantly associated with less positive beliefs in cohabitation, more positive beliefs regarding parenting and less permissive sexual attitudes. Hypothesis 5: Marital centrality beliefs will be a unique predictor of young adult behavior and attitudes beyond the effect of other beliefs in marital salience and timing.
Method The sample for the current study consisted of 571 unmarried young adults from a large public university in the Midwest. Students were undergraduates who were included in the university-wide research pool and were sent an e-mail from the research team inviting them to participate in a study on relationships. Interested participants were asked to follow a link to an online survey. If students agreed to participate and followed the link, they were given additional information on the study and asked to indicate informed consent before proceeding to the survey itself. During the survey, participants were allowed to skip any question they wished and could go back and revisit previous sections of the survey. The survey software used allowed only one entry per computer to avoid multiple entries from a single participant. Once participants had completed the survey they were thanked for their time and entered into a random drawing for a series of $50 gift cards. All aspects of study design and data collection were approved by the institutional review board at all authors’ universities. The sample was primarily female (75%). Racial distribution in the sample mirrored that of the university as a whole. The majority of the sample was White (90%) and heterosexual (90%). The average age was 20.82 (SD = 3.53). Participants generally came from affluent homes. Twenty four percent of the sample
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reported that their parents made over $100,000 per year, whereas only 13% reported a combined parental household income of less than $30,000 per year. Most reported that their parents were still married (69%). Over half (54%) of the sample reported being in some form of paid employment. The most common religious affiliation was Conservative Christian (24%) followed by Liberal Christian (23%) and Roman Catholic (16%). See Table 1 for a full breakdown of sample demographics. Measures Marital Beliefs Assessments of five dimensions of Marital Paradigm Theory were used in the current study. Marital centrality was assessed with a four item assessment, adapted from a measure developed by Kerpelman and Schvaneveldt (1999). Kerpelman and Schvaneveldt originally utilized a pen and paper method of assessing expectations regarding future roles by asking young adults to split a pie chart into three sections (marriage, parenthood, and career) based on how much identity importance they expected to place on each role in the future. The degree of the angle drawn was utilized to assess the relative importance of each role. For the current study we retained these three roles in an online format and added a fourth potential area of future importance, “personal leisure and hobbies.” We also revised the wording of the measure to make the directions more explicitly about the area of their lives generally. This is in contrast to Kerpelman and Schvaneveldt who asked participants to focus on identify formation specifically. In the current study, participants were asked to indicate how much importance they expected to place on the following aspects of their life in the future: marriage, parenting, career, and personal leisure/hobbies. Specifically, the participants were given the following prompt: Consider these eventual aspects of your life—though they may not all apply to you. How much importance do you expect to place on each of the following aspects of your life? Assign a percentage to each of the following aspects, equaling a total of 100% (indicating the relative importance of each of these roles compared to each other).
Participants moved four sliders to show their percentage on each item and were not allowed to complete this item without the summation equaling 100. Marital Salience was assessed by averaging responses to six items. These items assessed both the general and relative importance of getting married currently for the young adults. Sample items included: “Getting married is more important to me than having a successful career,” “I would like to be married now,” “Getting married is a very important goal for me,” “Getting married is more important than my educational pursuits and achievements,” “All in all, there are more advantages
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TABLE 1. Demographic Proportions, Means, and Standard Deviations
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Variable Gender Male Female Age Religiosity Sexual Orientation Heterosexual Homosexual Bisexual Parents Income $100,000 Race White Black Asian Latino Other Weekly Hours Worked Parents Marital Status Married Other Religious Affiliation Conservative Christian Liberal Christian Roman Catholic Atheist Agnostic Greek Orthodox Latter-day Saint Muslim/Islam Unitarian No affiliation Other
M
SD
% 25.4 74.6
20.82 2.80
3.53 1.10 89.5 4.6 6.0 12.7 63.5 23.8 90.0 3.9 .4 2.1 3.6
8.63
10.99 68.5 31.5 24.3 23.6 15.8 5.6 7.4 0.4 1.4 0.4 0.9 12.4 7.8
to being single than to being married (reverse coded),” and “Getting married is among my top priorities during this time in my life.” These items represent a collection of items created for this study and some single item assessments adopted from the work of Carroll and colleagues (2007) and have been shown to be reliable within college samples for the assessment of marital salience. The use of a multiitem scale allowed for a more robust assessment of marital salience. Reliability
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estimates suggested strong internal consistency (α = .85). Marital timing beliefs were assessed with one item assessing the ideal of marriage. Participants were asked to indicate the age that they felt was ideal for getting married. The average for this item was 25.6 (SD = 3.14). Marital permanence beliefs were assessed by averaging three items created by the study authors asking participants about the degree to which they believed marriage was a permanent institution and the acceptability of divorce. These three items were: “Personal happiness is more important than putting up with a bad marriage (reverse code),” “It is okay to divorce when a person’s needs are no longer met (reverse coded),” and “Marriage is for life, even if the couple is unhappy.” Higher scores indicated a greater belief in marital permanence. Reliability estimates suggested strong internal consistency (α = .82). Two scales were created to assess beliefs in marital processes and were adopted from similar measures by Hall (2006). Hall originally constructed the items to expand the scope of similar items used in previously published research (e.g., Baucom, Esptein, Rankin, & Burnett, 1996; Fletcher & Kininmonth, 1992)—while using those items as templates for new items. The new and formerlyused items had strong intercorrelations (i.e., α > .68) in Hall’s original study. One scale assessed the degree to which participants believed in traditional gender roles in marriage. This scale was computed by averaging three items which included: “In an ideal marriage, the man is the achiever outside the home and the woman takes care of the home,” “Husbands should have the final say when there are disagreements regarding the family,” and “Wives should have most of the say with decisions regarding housework and childcare.” Higher scores indicated more traditional gender role beliefs regarding marriage. Reliability estimates suggested strong internal consistency (α = .85). In addition, two items which assessed the expected effort that marriage would entail were averaged together. These items were: “Happy marriages require hard work,” and “If you have to work hard to make your marriage happy, it’s not a good marriage (reverse coded).” These two items were significantly correlated (r = .45, p < .001). Emerging Young Adult Behavior Several separate elements of young adults’ behaviors were assessed, including binge drinking, general alcohol consumption, frequency of sexual intercourse, other noncoital sexual behaviors, and pornography use. All individual items were assessed by asking each young adult how often they had engaged in these behaviors during the last month. Responses to all items were assessed on a 5-point scale (1 = Never; 5 = Every day or almost every day). Other Young Adult Attitudes Three different assessments were used to assess young adults’ attitudes and beliefs in other areas of their life. All assessments were measured by having participants indicate agreement on a scale from one (very strongly disagree) to
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six (very strongly agree) on several statements. These scales have been used previously to assess beliefs regarding family formation (see Carroll et al., 2007). The acceptability of cohabitation was assessed by one item asking agreement with the statement “It is all right for a couple to live together without planning to get married.” Child-centeredness was assessed by combining responses on three items including: “being a father and raising children is one of the most fulfilling experiences a man can have,” “being a mother and raising children is one of the most fulfilling experiences a woman can have,” and “having children is a very important goal for me.” Reliability estimates suggested strong internal consistency (α = .89). Sexual permissiveness was assessed by combining three items as well. These items included: “it is all right for two people to have sexual intercourse before marriage,” “it is all right for two people to get together for sex and not necessarily expect anything further,” and “viewing pornographic material (such as magazines, movies, and/or internet sites) is an acceptable way to express one’s sexuality.” Again, reliability estimates suggested strong internal consistency (α = .87). Controls Age, gender, race (0 = white; 1 = other), and religiosity were all assessed and used as controls in various analyses. Previous studies have suggested that beliefs regarding family formation vary across all three of these demographic factors (Blakemore et al., 2005; Oropesa, 1996; Willoughby & Carroll, 2012). Religiosity was operationalized as the importance one places on religious activities and spirituality and was the average of four specific items. These items included: “my religious faith is extremely important to me,” “I look to my faith as providing meaning and purpose in my life,” “my faith is an important part of who I am as a person,” and “my relationship with God is extremely important to me.” All items were assessed on a four point, forced choice scale (1 = strongly agree; 4 = strongly disagree). This scale has good internal consistency (α = .98). Results Descriptive Results The dataset included little missing data (never more than 2% on any variable or scale) and as a result, list-wise deletion was used in all analyses. When exploring basic frequencies associated with our marital centrality item, it was found that, on average, young adults in the sample believed they would place the highest priority on marriage (M = 29.9% importance) followed by parenting (M = 27.6%), career (M = 26.7%), and finally leisure/hobbies (M = 15.8%). Profile analyses were used to explore differences in response profiles based on both gender and religiosity (Figure 1). Profile analysis is related to repeated measure or mixed ANOVAs in that it allows for the assessment of whether the pattern of responses across multiple
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FIGURE 1. Profile analysis for marital centrality compared to other adult roles by high/low religiosity.
time periods (or repeated items) is similar or dissimilar for various groups. In the present study we used this technique to explore whether the profile of responses on the four future role items (marriage, parenting, career, and leisure/hobbies) was similar based on either gender (male/female) or religiosity (high/low).
Hypotheses 1 and 2 Analyses first explored flatness of profiles, or if young adults placed significantly different levels of importance on the four future roles items. Results suggested that responses significantly differed across the four items within the entire sample (Wilks = .621, F(3, 562) = 114.17, p < .001). Specific paired-sample t-tests suggested that mean responses on all four items significantly differed from each other with the exception of the means for parenting and career. When exploring differences across both gender and religiosity, the test of parallelism was of particular interest to our hypotheses. This test explored whether each segment (the difference between average responses for two items) differed across groups. Tests of parallelism were found for both gender (Wilks = .983, F(3, 562) = 3.27, p = .021) and religiosity (Wilks = .882, F(3, 558) = 24.84, p
The Journal of Psychology: Interdisciplinary and Applied Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vjrl20
Marriage Matters But How Much? Marital Centrality Among Young Adults a
b
a
Brian J. Willoughby , Scott S. Hall & Saige Goff a
Brigham Young University
b
Ball State University Published online: 12 Dec 2014.
Click for updates To cite this article: Brian J. Willoughby, Scott S. Hall & Saige Goff (2015) Marriage Matters But How Much? Marital Centrality Among Young Adults, The Journal of Psychology: Interdisciplinary and Applied, 149:8, 796-817, DOI: 10.1080/00223980.2014.979128 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00223980.2014.979128
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages,
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The Journal of Psychology, 2015, 149(8), 796–817 C 2015 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC Copyright doi: 10.1080/00223980.2014.979128
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Marriage Matters But How Much? Marital Centrality Among Young Adults BRIAN J. WILLOUGHBY Brigham Young University SCOTT S. HALL Ball State University SAIGE GOFF Brigham Young University
ABSTRACT. Marriage, once a gateway to adulthood, is no longer as widely considered a requirement for achieving adult status. With declining marriage rates and delayed marital transitions, some have wondered whether current young adults have rejected the traditional notion of marriage. Utilizing a sample of 571 young adults, the present study explored how marital centrality (the expected importance to be placed on the marital role relative to other adult roles) functioned as a unique and previously unexplored marital belief among young adults. Results suggested that marriage remains an important role for many young adults. On average, young adults expected that marriage would be more important to their life than parenting, careers, or leisure activities. Marital centrality profiles were found to significantly differ based on both gender and religiosity. Marital centrality was also associated with various outcomes including binge-drinking and sexual activity. Specifically, the more central marriage was expected to be, the less young adults engaged in risk-taking or sexual behaviors. Keywords: marriage, roles, belief, attitude, young adult, emerging adult
MARRIAGE AS BOTH A SOCIETAL INSTITUTION and a relationship status has undergone dramatic shifts in the last several decades. Once the common and normative “capstone” of adult relationship progression, marriage has slowly faded to the background in favor of career development and educational trajectories for many adults in western and other industrialized countries. Marriage rates have Address correspondence to Brian J. Willoughby, School of Family Life, Brigham Young University, 2081 JFSB, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602, USA; [email protected] (e-mail). Color versions of one or more of the figures in the article can be found online at www.tandfonline.com/ vjrl. 796
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steadily declined over the last fifty years in the United States (Copen, Daniels, Vespa, & Mosher, 2012) while nonmarital births are at record highs (Ventura, 2009). This shift away from marital child-bearing has weakened the connection between marriage and one of the elements that made it seem so essential in previous generations, the rearing and socialization of children. These changes have been accompanied by parallel shifts in divorce rates (Kreider & Ellis, 2011) and premarital cohabitation (Goodwin, Mosher, & Chandra, 2010; Kennedy & Bumpass, 2008), both of which remain high with the latter continuing to rise (Seltzer, 2004). These demographic shifts have led to what Cherlin (2004) described as the deinstitutionalization of marriage where normative beliefs and trajectories are eroding and pathways through or without marriage are becoming more pervasive. With these changes in the marital institution, adolescents and young adults are left to navigate a relational landscape where all roads may no longer end at the same outcome. While many young adults may still end up marrying, a growing proportion will enter their 30’s single (Kreider & Ellis, 2011) and trajectories through the 20’s are generally becoming more diverse (Horowitz, & Bromnick, 2007). Despite these changes in behavior and norms, a steady and large proportion of young adults and adolescents still value marriage (Carroll et al., 2007; B. Wilcox, 2010) and expect to marry at some point in the future (Scott, Schelar, Manlove, & Cui, 2009; Thornton & Young-DeMarco, 2001; W. B. Wilcox & Marquardt, 2011). Indeed, these attitudinal findings suggest that marriage is still very much a goal for the vast majority of young adults, despite decreases in actual marital transitions. One possible explanation for this apparent contradiction is that while marriage remains important for many, other roles and life goals may be increasingly given a higher priority in the minds of young adults. Goals centered on work, leisure activities, or even parenting separated from marriage may diminish the relative priority that some young adults place on marriage. In the current study we sought to address this question by exploring whether young adults continue to place a high priority on their future marital role as a spouse relative to other priorities, operationalized in the current study as marital centrality. In line with previous marital belief findings (Carroll et al., 2007; Willoughby, Hall, & Luczak, 2013), we also explored how marital centrality was associated with a range of behavioral and risky outcomes among young adults and how beliefs regarding marital centrality compared to other commonly assessed beliefs regarding marriage. Marital Beliefs Among Young Adults Although marriage is now increasingly unlikely to occur for most young adults until well into their late 20’s or early 30’s (Copen et al., 2012), scholars have argued that marital beliefs are still relevant variables of interest in understanding young adult development and trajectories through the time period. Carroll and colleagues (2007; 2009) proposed a Marital Horizon Theory of young adulthood
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where it was argued that the diversity and complexity seen within young adulthood, viewed through the lens of family development theory, can be partially explained by exploring how young adults view, conceptualize, and prioritize future marital relationships. The premise of Marital Horizon Theory is that the beliefs young adults hold regarding marriage are likely setting young adults on trajectories through the developmental period that will impact risk-taking decisions (Clark, Poulin, & Kohler, 2009; Willoughby & Dworkin, 2009) and later union formation (Clarkberg, Stolzenberg, & Waite, 1995; Thornton, Axinn, & Xie, 2008). In the last several years, several studies have confirmed these theoretical assumptions, showing that how young adults conceptualize future marriages is associated with a range of behaviors (Gassanov, Nicholson, & Koch-Turner, 2008; Mahay & Lewin, 2007; Willoughby & Dworkin, 2009; Carlson, 2012). Several studies have found particularly strong ties between the marital beliefs young adults hold regarding the importance and ideal timing of marriage, binge drinking (Carroll et al., 2007), and sexual behavior (Clark et al., 2009; Willoughby & Dworkin; Willoughby & Carroll, 2010). These studies have generally found that young adults who place a high priority on marriage and desire to marry sooner engage in fewer risky behaviors but may engage in more sexual behavior. For example, Clark and colleagues (2009) found that a desire to marry sooner was associated with increased engagement in sexual behaviors. These findings have generally been explained through the process of anticipatory socialization (Burr, Day, & Bahr, 1993) where young adults who plan to marry soon begin to alter their behavior in anticipation of an impending marital transition. Building off of and extending Marital Horizon Theory, Marital Paradigm Theory (Willoughby et al., 2013) was developed to further understand how marital beliefs impact the daily lives of young adults. Marital Paradigm Theory argues that one’s generalized beliefs regarding marriage influence specific intentions to engage in behavior ranging from dating choices to educational decisions. Thus, one’s marital beliefs serve as important markers of behavioral decision-making and should be explored as possible catalysts for healthy and unhealthy behavior across developmental periods. Willoughby and colleagues noted that Carroll’s previous work largely centered on beliefs regarding getting married and omitted parallel beliefs regarding being married. According to Willoughby and colleagues, beliefs about getting married encompass beliefs about oneself or others regarding the process of marital courtship and situating marital transitions around other goals in one’s life. Conversely, beliefs regarding being married are beliefs one holds regarding the importance of one’s marital role after marital transitions have occurred or regarding expectations of what marriage and marital life will be like. While acknowledging that most research on marital beliefs has focused on beliefs regarding getting married and few previous studies have undertaken an exploration focused on beliefs regarding being married, it was noted that young adults may hold beliefs regarding being married in the future that may have just as
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much impact on their daily behavior as beliefs regarding getting married. Marital Paradigm Theory suggested that three broad dimensions of marital beliefs regarding being married exist: beliefs regarding marital centrality, marital permanence and marital process. Key to the present study, marital centrality was defined as beliefs regarding the importance of one’s future or current marital role and the priority that role would take relative to other adult roles and activities.
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Marital Centrality Willoughby et al. (2013) noted that beliefs regarding the centrality of the marital role remains perhaps the most understudied type of marital belief in the current literature. They acknowledged that “little research exists exploring how individuals conceptualize the relative importance the marital relationship will hold for them after marriage” (p. 15). Despite this lack of scholarship, some studies do suggest that the centrality of marriage compared to other life roles and obligations may hold important insights into young adult behavior. Commitment to one’s marriage has long been an important marker and predictor of relational success and well-being (Owen, Rhoades, Stanley, & Markman, 2011; Stanley & Markman, 1993) and most definitions of commitment include the idea that commitment to one’s partner involves the prioritization of that relationship above other obligations. Specifically, dedication commitment (Owen et al.) is often partially conceptualized as putting a priority on one’s relationship. In this way, the vast scholarship on commitment suggests that beliefs regarding the relative centrality of one’s marriage is an important indicator of relational well-being once one enters into marital relationships. But what about beliefs regarding marital centrality earlier in the life course? As most young adults still expect to marry, scholars have noted that young adults appear to hold perceptions and expectations regarding future marital roles even before they make marital transitions. Whitehead and Popenoe (2001) noted that many young adults expect their future marriage to be a “full-time” job and expected to devote personal resources into such a relationship. Likewise, Kerpelman and Schvaneveldt (1999) found that both men and women tend to place a high importance on being married as a future identity and tended to value it equally. Peake and Harris (2002) noted that many young people are actively planning for balancing marriage, career, and other tasks before such transitions occur. Attempting to explore this preparation, Willoughby (2010) argued that the relative importance of marriage may be a more useful variable of study among young adults than traditional measures of marital importance. While general measures of marital importance are prone to low variability given that most individuals value marriage, the relative importance of marriage or a future spousal role may provide more measureable and useful differences within a given population. Using a large sample of high school students, Willoughby showed that adolescents’ beliefs regarding the centrality of marriage relative to both friendships and careers shifted
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as these adolescents approached young adulthood. While in early adolescence, participants on average believed they would value friendships and careers more than marriage. By the time the same sample was approaching high school graduation, future marital roles were believed to be more important than friendships and virtually of equal importance to future careers. Unfortunately, this study of adolescents is currently the only study to explore beliefs regarding the relative centrality of marriage compared other adult roles and obligations among adolescents. No data currently exists on similar beliefs among young adults and no study to date has explored whether such beliefs regarding marital centrality are associated with behavioral decisions in ways similar to beliefs regarding marital salience (i.e., importance) or timing (see Carroll et al., 2007; Willoughby & Dworkin, 2009). Overview of Present Study The goal of the present study was to assess an element of Marital Paradigm Theory, marital centrality, which has previously not been empirically studied during young adulthood. Specifically, we investigated how central marriage is expected to be in the future lives of unmarried young adults, how marital centrality may be associated with current risky behaviors, and how beliefs regarding marital centrality might relate to other previously researched beliefs regarding the marital relationship. Given that marital beliefs have proven to be important markers of healthy young adult development (Carroll et al., 2007), such findings may be important for both scholars interested in healthy young adult development and practitioners who desire to understand the correlates of risky behavior during young adulthood. Additionally, we believe that such an investigation may provide insight into why young adults generally still place importance on marriage but collectively are delaying marital transitions (Arnett, 2000). We undertook this investigation by first utilizing a unique measurement that tasked young adults within the sample with estimating the relative importance of four future roles and obligations (marriage, parenting, careers, and leisure activities). Our first task was to explore the following general research question: Research Question 1: How much importance do never married young adults expect to place on marriage compared to parenting, careers, and leisure activities in the future?
We also focused on how aspects of marital centrality might differ by both gender and religiosity. Marital belief scholarship has long shown that males and females differ in how they conceptualize and view marriage (Carroll et al., 2007; W. B. Wilcox & Dew, 2010). Males have traditionally valued marriage less than females (Blakemore, Lawton, & Vartanian, 2005) and report a later ideal age of marriage than women (Carroll et al., 2007). Additionally, highly religious
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individuals tend to give marriage a special and sacred meaning in their lives (Dollahite, Hawkins, & Parr, 2012). Due to these findings, in the present study we explored how gender and religiosity might change patterns of marital centrality and tested the following two hypotheses:
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Hypothesis 1: Women will place a higher importance on their future marital role than men. Hypothesis 2: More religious young adults will place more importance on their future marital role than less religious young adults.
We finally sought to explore how marital centrality beliefs were related to other marital beliefs (marital salience and marital timing). One of the motivations for such an inquiry was to explore whether marital centrality beliefs have heavy conceptual and/or measurement overlap compared to other similar beliefs regarding marriage. We explored this within the context of other commonly utilized marital belief measurement to predict current risky behaviors and other beliefs and attitudes among young adults. Several studies (Gassanov et al., 2008; Mahay & Lewin, 2007; Willoughby & Dworkin, 2009; Carlson, 2012) have shown links between marital beliefs and such outcomes and we sought to extend these findings by replicating them while also examining whether marital centrality provided a unique predictive ability above and beyond measures of marital beliefs utilized in previous studies. In the current study we assessed associations between marital beliefs and several key markers of behavior, focusing primarily on alcohol use (measured by both binge drinking and general alcohol use) and sexual activity. These two outcomes were selected for two reasons. First, previous research has shown associations between marital beliefs and both alcohol use (Carroll et al., 2007) and sexual behavior (Clark et al., 2009; Simons, Burt, & Tambling, 2012; Willoughby & Dworkin, 2009; Willoughby & Carroll, 2010). Second, both binge drinking (Delucchi, Matzger, & Weisner, 2008) and sexual activity (Kaestle & Halpern, 2007) tend to peak during young adulthood before declining throughout the twenties. That many young adults engage in high levels of both behaviors suggests that both are key indicators of well-being during this developmental period. We utilized several markers of sexual behavior in the current student including sexual intercourse, noncoital sexual engagement, and use of pornography. Use of pornography in particular has been shown to be a common sexual practice among young adults and one that is linked to mental health outcomes (Carroll et al., 2008; Willoughby, Carroll, Nelson, & Padilla-Walker, 2014). In particular, Willoughby and colleagues (2014) recently found that female use of pornography during young adulthood was associated with negative mental health outcomes while male pornography use among young adults was associated with a pattern of risky behaviors. Carroll and colleagues (2008) also noted that use of pornography was
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significantly associated with marital timing beliefs among both young adult men and women. In addition to these two key indicators, Carroll and colleagues (2007) also documented strong correlations between marital beliefs and beliefs young adults hold regarding cohabitation, parenting, and other aspects of family formation. Due to these findings we also explored associations between marital centrality and other family formation beliefs. Drawing on the Marital Paradigm Theory (Willoughby et al., 2013), which suggests that marital centrality is a unique dimension of marital beliefs, and other studies, which have suggested that marital beliefs of generalized importance and timing are important correlates of young adult development in terms of both risky behavior and beliefs and attitudes toward other behavioral decisions, we examined the following three research hypotheses: Hypothesis 3: More belief in the centrality of marriage will be significantly associated with less binge drinking and sexual activity among young adults. Hypothesis 4: More belief in the centrality of marriage will be significantly associated with less positive beliefs in cohabitation, more positive beliefs regarding parenting and less permissive sexual attitudes. Hypothesis 5: Marital centrality beliefs will be a unique predictor of young adult behavior and attitudes beyond the effect of other beliefs in marital salience and timing.
Method The sample for the current study consisted of 571 unmarried young adults from a large public university in the Midwest. Students were undergraduates who were included in the university-wide research pool and were sent an e-mail from the research team inviting them to participate in a study on relationships. Interested participants were asked to follow a link to an online survey. If students agreed to participate and followed the link, they were given additional information on the study and asked to indicate informed consent before proceeding to the survey itself. During the survey, participants were allowed to skip any question they wished and could go back and revisit previous sections of the survey. The survey software used allowed only one entry per computer to avoid multiple entries from a single participant. Once participants had completed the survey they were thanked for their time and entered into a random drawing for a series of $50 gift cards. All aspects of study design and data collection were approved by the institutional review board at all authors’ universities. The sample was primarily female (75%). Racial distribution in the sample mirrored that of the university as a whole. The majority of the sample was White (90%) and heterosexual (90%). The average age was 20.82 (SD = 3.53). Participants generally came from affluent homes. Twenty four percent of the sample
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reported that their parents made over $100,000 per year, whereas only 13% reported a combined parental household income of less than $30,000 per year. Most reported that their parents were still married (69%). Over half (54%) of the sample reported being in some form of paid employment. The most common religious affiliation was Conservative Christian (24%) followed by Liberal Christian (23%) and Roman Catholic (16%). See Table 1 for a full breakdown of sample demographics. Measures Marital Beliefs Assessments of five dimensions of Marital Paradigm Theory were used in the current study. Marital centrality was assessed with a four item assessment, adapted from a measure developed by Kerpelman and Schvaneveldt (1999). Kerpelman and Schvaneveldt originally utilized a pen and paper method of assessing expectations regarding future roles by asking young adults to split a pie chart into three sections (marriage, parenthood, and career) based on how much identity importance they expected to place on each role in the future. The degree of the angle drawn was utilized to assess the relative importance of each role. For the current study we retained these three roles in an online format and added a fourth potential area of future importance, “personal leisure and hobbies.” We also revised the wording of the measure to make the directions more explicitly about the area of their lives generally. This is in contrast to Kerpelman and Schvaneveldt who asked participants to focus on identify formation specifically. In the current study, participants were asked to indicate how much importance they expected to place on the following aspects of their life in the future: marriage, parenting, career, and personal leisure/hobbies. Specifically, the participants were given the following prompt: Consider these eventual aspects of your life—though they may not all apply to you. How much importance do you expect to place on each of the following aspects of your life? Assign a percentage to each of the following aspects, equaling a total of 100% (indicating the relative importance of each of these roles compared to each other).
Participants moved four sliders to show their percentage on each item and were not allowed to complete this item without the summation equaling 100. Marital Salience was assessed by averaging responses to six items. These items assessed both the general and relative importance of getting married currently for the young adults. Sample items included: “Getting married is more important to me than having a successful career,” “I would like to be married now,” “Getting married is a very important goal for me,” “Getting married is more important than my educational pursuits and achievements,” “All in all, there are more advantages
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TABLE 1. Demographic Proportions, Means, and Standard Deviations
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Variable Gender Male Female Age Religiosity Sexual Orientation Heterosexual Homosexual Bisexual Parents Income $100,000 Race White Black Asian Latino Other Weekly Hours Worked Parents Marital Status Married Other Religious Affiliation Conservative Christian Liberal Christian Roman Catholic Atheist Agnostic Greek Orthodox Latter-day Saint Muslim/Islam Unitarian No affiliation Other
M
SD
% 25.4 74.6
20.82 2.80
3.53 1.10 89.5 4.6 6.0 12.7 63.5 23.8 90.0 3.9 .4 2.1 3.6
8.63
10.99 68.5 31.5 24.3 23.6 15.8 5.6 7.4 0.4 1.4 0.4 0.9 12.4 7.8
to being single than to being married (reverse coded),” and “Getting married is among my top priorities during this time in my life.” These items represent a collection of items created for this study and some single item assessments adopted from the work of Carroll and colleagues (2007) and have been shown to be reliable within college samples for the assessment of marital salience. The use of a multiitem scale allowed for a more robust assessment of marital salience. Reliability
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estimates suggested strong internal consistency (α = .85). Marital timing beliefs were assessed with one item assessing the ideal of marriage. Participants were asked to indicate the age that they felt was ideal for getting married. The average for this item was 25.6 (SD = 3.14). Marital permanence beliefs were assessed by averaging three items created by the study authors asking participants about the degree to which they believed marriage was a permanent institution and the acceptability of divorce. These three items were: “Personal happiness is more important than putting up with a bad marriage (reverse code),” “It is okay to divorce when a person’s needs are no longer met (reverse coded),” and “Marriage is for life, even if the couple is unhappy.” Higher scores indicated a greater belief in marital permanence. Reliability estimates suggested strong internal consistency (α = .82). Two scales were created to assess beliefs in marital processes and were adopted from similar measures by Hall (2006). Hall originally constructed the items to expand the scope of similar items used in previously published research (e.g., Baucom, Esptein, Rankin, & Burnett, 1996; Fletcher & Kininmonth, 1992)—while using those items as templates for new items. The new and formerlyused items had strong intercorrelations (i.e., α > .68) in Hall’s original study. One scale assessed the degree to which participants believed in traditional gender roles in marriage. This scale was computed by averaging three items which included: “In an ideal marriage, the man is the achiever outside the home and the woman takes care of the home,” “Husbands should have the final say when there are disagreements regarding the family,” and “Wives should have most of the say with decisions regarding housework and childcare.” Higher scores indicated more traditional gender role beliefs regarding marriage. Reliability estimates suggested strong internal consistency (α = .85). In addition, two items which assessed the expected effort that marriage would entail were averaged together. These items were: “Happy marriages require hard work,” and “If you have to work hard to make your marriage happy, it’s not a good marriage (reverse coded).” These two items were significantly correlated (r = .45, p < .001). Emerging Young Adult Behavior Several separate elements of young adults’ behaviors were assessed, including binge drinking, general alcohol consumption, frequency of sexual intercourse, other noncoital sexual behaviors, and pornography use. All individual items were assessed by asking each young adult how often they had engaged in these behaviors during the last month. Responses to all items were assessed on a 5-point scale (1 = Never; 5 = Every day or almost every day). Other Young Adult Attitudes Three different assessments were used to assess young adults’ attitudes and beliefs in other areas of their life. All assessments were measured by having participants indicate agreement on a scale from one (very strongly disagree) to
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six (very strongly agree) on several statements. These scales have been used previously to assess beliefs regarding family formation (see Carroll et al., 2007). The acceptability of cohabitation was assessed by one item asking agreement with the statement “It is all right for a couple to live together without planning to get married.” Child-centeredness was assessed by combining responses on three items including: “being a father and raising children is one of the most fulfilling experiences a man can have,” “being a mother and raising children is one of the most fulfilling experiences a woman can have,” and “having children is a very important goal for me.” Reliability estimates suggested strong internal consistency (α = .89). Sexual permissiveness was assessed by combining three items as well. These items included: “it is all right for two people to have sexual intercourse before marriage,” “it is all right for two people to get together for sex and not necessarily expect anything further,” and “viewing pornographic material (such as magazines, movies, and/or internet sites) is an acceptable way to express one’s sexuality.” Again, reliability estimates suggested strong internal consistency (α = .87). Controls Age, gender, race (0 = white; 1 = other), and religiosity were all assessed and used as controls in various analyses. Previous studies have suggested that beliefs regarding family formation vary across all three of these demographic factors (Blakemore et al., 2005; Oropesa, 1996; Willoughby & Carroll, 2012). Religiosity was operationalized as the importance one places on religious activities and spirituality and was the average of four specific items. These items included: “my religious faith is extremely important to me,” “I look to my faith as providing meaning and purpose in my life,” “my faith is an important part of who I am as a person,” and “my relationship with God is extremely important to me.” All items were assessed on a four point, forced choice scale (1 = strongly agree; 4 = strongly disagree). This scale has good internal consistency (α = .98). Results Descriptive Results The dataset included little missing data (never more than 2% on any variable or scale) and as a result, list-wise deletion was used in all analyses. When exploring basic frequencies associated with our marital centrality item, it was found that, on average, young adults in the sample believed they would place the highest priority on marriage (M = 29.9% importance) followed by parenting (M = 27.6%), career (M = 26.7%), and finally leisure/hobbies (M = 15.8%). Profile analyses were used to explore differences in response profiles based on both gender and religiosity (Figure 1). Profile analysis is related to repeated measure or mixed ANOVAs in that it allows for the assessment of whether the pattern of responses across multiple
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FIGURE 1. Profile analysis for marital centrality compared to other adult roles by high/low religiosity.
time periods (or repeated items) is similar or dissimilar for various groups. In the present study we used this technique to explore whether the profile of responses on the four future role items (marriage, parenting, career, and leisure/hobbies) was similar based on either gender (male/female) or religiosity (high/low).
Hypotheses 1 and 2 Analyses first explored flatness of profiles, or if young adults placed significantly different levels of importance on the four future roles items. Results suggested that responses significantly differed across the four items within the entire sample (Wilks = .621, F(3, 562) = 114.17, p < .001). Specific paired-sample t-tests suggested that mean responses on all four items significantly differed from each other with the exception of the means for parenting and career. When exploring differences across both gender and religiosity, the test of parallelism was of particular interest to our hypotheses. This test explored whether each segment (the difference between average responses for two items) differed across groups. Tests of parallelism were found for both gender (Wilks = .983, F(3, 562) = 3.27, p = .021) and religiosity (Wilks = .882, F(3, 558) = 24.84, p
